Going Japanese (Modern Style)

An East Bay builder combines her love of Japanese design with her modern sensibilities to create the home she’s always dreamed of.

Japanese temple meets urban loft. That’s one way to describe the Oakland Hills home designed and built by Sallie Bliss Lang. Hovering over a canyon, with drop-dead views of San Francisco Bay, the city’s majestic downtown skyline, and Marin County’s headlands, the house is a tribute to Lang’s love of Japanese design and has more than a smattering of her modern sensibilities.

The opportunity to build her ideal home arrived when Lang and a group of friends, who had formed an investment collective, came upon this hillside property. The five of them bought the land, designating Lang as the home’s designer and builder. (The completed home has since been purchased by a prominent California politician.)

That was the easy part. Engineering a house on a 37-degree slope was the challenge. “To design a home on a lot that’s so steep, and to make it pleasant to live in, I knew that was going to be hard,” says Lang, who lives and works in Oakland. Plus she didn’t want just any home. She specifically wanted one that espoused the Japanese aesthetics—simplicity, profundity, attention to detail, austere beauty—she’d become enamored with.

Lang’s interest in Japanese building and design comes partly from her work with master builder Paul Discoe, founder of Joinery Structures, who studied Buddhist temple design and construction in Japan. Discoe had hired her to help build Larry Ellison’s immense Japanese-inspired compound in Woodside, which includes a traditional teahouse. “I integrated a lot of what I learned from Paul into my own process,” Lang says.

For this home, though, she decided to put a spin on traditional Japanese design. “The idea was to create a hybrid,” Lang says. “Traditional Japanese houses are tough for Americans to live in, because they’re delicate, so this house is kind of in between. It’s got the aesthetic—the light, warmth, and clean lines of Japanese homes—but it’s still user-friendly and very hearty.”

Lang used wood—Forest Stewardship Council certified, recycled, or locally harvested— throughout the home. The choice of material was in line with the Eastern aesthetic and also softened her modernist components. “I love modern design, but I’m turned off by coldness and what feels to me as the overindustrial feel of it, so the wood was an attempt to warm it up,” she says. A built-in bench adorns the entryway; the wood from the fireplace mantle in the living room came from a felled elm recovered after a 1995 storm in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park; the wood for door and window trim was sourced at Live Edge, a milling company that reuses salvaged trees.

Lang had the frame built in a prefab shop in Canada and, after the remaining infrastructure was in place, had it shipped and assembled. “It’s a very efficient way to build,” she says. “But it’s also harder. You have to be exact in your planning, but if you do it right and you’re meticulous, it goes together really nicely. There was barely a detail that was not worked out beforehand, so the frame went up in six weeks.”

Like the Japanese builders of her inspiration, Lang took painstaking care with every detail of construction, so it’s no surprise that the home took three years to come to fruition, from the time of the purchase of the property to the application of the final coat of paint last November. The house has three bedrooms and four baths, and spans some 4,200 square feet over five levels (including the street-level garage).

From the road, the only indication of what’s inside is the Japanese-style gate. Once you approach the front entrance down a set of stairs, a hefty Asian-inspired sliding door with horizontal mahogany slats sets the stage. This second level offers the entryway, an office, and a guest bath. Above the door and throughout other parts of the house, the wooden grid ceiling is just one of many nods to master temple builders. Even the security keypad is hidden inside an elegant wood-framed box.

A spacious wooden staircase brings you down to the main floor, which comprises two guest bedrooms and a great room—the living room, dining room, and kitchen—topped by a soaring open-beam wood cathedral ceiling. The views out the many windows steal the show, but the eye is also drawn to Lang’s numerous graceful details: a soapstone kitchen counter, open corner shelving, and textured glass cabinet doors. An electronics closet hides remote control gadgets and avoids cluttering the clean lines of the room; a dumbwaiter travels between floors.

A luxurious master bedroom takes up the entire fourth level. From the bedroom, you look out over the Marin Headlands—unless you prefer to gaze at the flames in the remote-controlled fireplace. Two huge walk-in closets and a walled-off lounging area keep the bedroom a serene retreat. The bathroom is all understated glam. The counter and sink are made of limestone, glass tiles evoke the shape of bamboo trees, towel racks are radiant heated, and a steam shower offers multiple showerheads that cascade water from every conceivable angle.

Descending one last time you reach what Lang calls the “spa level.” Here the house makes the transition from Japanese tradition to urban loft. Eschewing traditional sliding glass doors to the wooden deck, Lang used two glass-paneled garage doors. An adjoining sauna has its own entrance. There’s also a river rock–lined shower and a small kitchenette. The perfect blend of Japanese aesthetics and modern convenience.