The old guard strikes back

By Henry Jones

When architect Lewis W. Butler submitted a proposal to the department of building inspection for a remodel of a 31-year-old hedge-fund bachelor’s Normandie Terrace home (see rendering above), he knew there’d be trouble. Not just because it involved a near total overhaul, but because the house was going to be enormous and conspicuously modern—and this was Pacific Heights.

Contemporary designs have been popping up all over Pac Heights lately, and the people planning them—typically young guys newly rich from tech or finance—are not receiving a warm welcome. And several bitter legal battles over a resident’s rights to go modern have already been waged—including the house on the 2600 block of Jackson Street designed for TiVo exec Mark Perry (winner: modern) and an apartment building on the 2600 block of Pacific (winner: old). But if those were the opening act, the house on Normandie is shaping up to be the main event.

Butler’s initial plan was for a six-story glass creation, with two levels down the side of the hill to circumvent height restrictions, plus a garage entrance four stories below on Vallejo Street (an elevator would link the floors). In addition to their aesthetic concerns, neighbors feared that the construction might damage the hill’s stability. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Stephen Williams, the lawyer representing at least 30 neighbors who oppose the project. “I mean, you’d be able to see the house from Berkeley.”

Butler’s first two proposals have already been rejected, and he’s now at work on a third. In the meantime, the neighbors have pursued an old-fashioned letter-writing campaign, in which they appear simultaneously dignified and apoplectic, variously describing the project as “atrocious,” “real estate rape,” “immoral,” and the client’s “glass monument to himself.” One 18-year-old even joined the fray, pleading that his love for his home and neighborhood “should outweigh the selfish concerns of one person who has never even lived here.”

Butler has other young clients whose sense of design may also outrage certain locals. “They have ambitious plans for beautiful, contemporary houses,” he says, “but when they pursue them here, they immediately hit a brick wall of the older generation.”

Rendering courtesy of Lewis W. Butler

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