Young Architect’s Last Work

This week's search for choice mid-century modern gems on the California real estate market once again took us to beautiful Orinda, in the East Bay, where we met up with a lovely hideaway on a cul-de-sac set into a grove of lush ferns and golden azaleas.

We were told that enchantment awaited us on Kittiwake Road—and that description, after a peek inside this beauty, was much more than mere marketing puffery. We truly loved what we saw.

Glowing with warmth and natural light, the inviting, redwood-clad home-in-the-woods features a wraparound deck that's as ideal for curling up with a book as it is for hosting outdoor gatherings in the heart of nature.

Minutes from Orinda Village, BART, top-rated schools, local parks, and scenic trails, the property at 1 Kittiwake Road is listed at $1.649 mil by Corey Weinstein and Maria Cavallo-Merrion of Vanguard Properties.

"This house is really beautiful," Weinstein says. "I've been at open houses, and people are saying that the setting feels so soulful, and that the combination of the redwoods and looking out into the trees feels magical."

Referring to house blueprints, Weinstein explained that the home was designed by architect Donald Grier Hannum, today unfortunately lost in the annals of Bay Area architectural history, who built it in 1958 for the Manford Funsten family.

Current owner Cari Borja agrees that the house "is like magic!" and then adds, "It's been eight years since I first saw this house. It was Mother's Day weekend, and it was the 120th house I saw!" It immediately caught her eye.

A fashion designer, and anthropologist with a PhD. in film, Borja says the house was inspirational and transformative from the start.

"We had lived in West Oakland back then," she recalls. "Really beautiful, vertical living; tiny, tiny garden; gated; very European. And we went from that…to this!"

Over the eight years that she and her family have lived on Kittiwake, Borja and her husband, a designer at Pixar, hosted salons and large dinner parties at the home.

"All the experiences!" she recalls. "My son learned to cook and bake and set the table for my salon dinners here—and learned how to entertain, how to gather. I have been to chateaus, lived all over the world…but the Orinda house was a nice place that you could buy!"

Borja would certainly agree that a house, even this one, is all about ‘location, location, location.'