Bluff Overlooks the Sea : A Dream House Is Built Around Spectacular View
Peter and Ellen Gray have done just what the old song recommends--build a sweet little nest somewhere in the West and let the rest of the world go by.
Except that their home, still under construction, is less of a nest and more of an eagle’s aerie perched on a Cardiff bluff above the San Elijo Lagoon. And it is not exactly the type of place that the rest of the world is going to ignore. It consists of a framework of structural steel molded into seven roof lines that curl out from the roof peak like petals of an upended flower.
The world already has paused once, causing a mini-snarl of traffic on Interstate 5, when workmen performed what resembled a high-wire act to connect the structural steel girders that support the structure on a cliff.
Peter Gray, 43, an anesthesiologist at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, and his wife, Ellen, a travel consultant in Lake San Marcos, have spent the last four years searching for the perfect spot for their perfect house and then, after finding the site, searching for an architect and a builder to design and construct it.
From each unfinished picture window is a picture-perfect view: ocean surf, coastal bluffs, the busy wildlife of the lagoon below with a busy Interstate 5 freeway bridge above it, the wooded inland hills and a few that are covered with tract homes. The Grays were hoping that their 360-degree vista could avoid any signs of civilization, but others have moved in to claim a share of the coveted view.
As the construction proceeds, the Grays, architect Wallace Cunningham and builder Ed Olsen are frequent busybodies on the site, checking the smallest deviation from perfection, changing the cant of a roof or moving a wall to make the most of the views. Cunningham, a 31-year-old architect from Carlsbad whom Ellen Gray labels “a real comer,” designed the house to fit the lot and the personalities of the Grays and their 12-year-old son, Ryan.
For a dynamic site, “I designed a dynamic building,” Cunningham explained. Reflecting the personalities of his clients, Cunningham adds “flash” or “subtlety” to his designs to match the characteristics of his creation’s future tenants.
When completed, the house’s smooth stucco walls and pale gray, sweeping roof forms will be a “public sculpture,” and “a crowning feature” of the coastal lagoon below, Cunningham said. “It will resemble sails against the sky.”
He has designed a similar multilevel, multiroofed home for a Rancho Santa Fe family. But that, Cunningham said, is located in a private little valley, hidden from public view. The Grays’ home will be in full view of tens of thousands of freeway travelers each day.
The building is composed of peaks, slopes and angles with light entering from all sides and from above. One glass wall rises 36 feet to the peak of the roof, harbors a “meditation room” at its apex and widens out to a sweeping ocean--and lagoon--panorama at its base. Cunningham designed the home on 11 levels, with each room at a slightly different level, all designed to mimic the lines of the bluff. Even the three-stall garage has a sweeping view.
The structural steel that binds the 4,800-square-foot home together was the Grays’ requirement, not dictated by an overzealous state Coastal Commission or San Diego County building inspector.
“I wanted a home that was as earthquake-proof as possible,” Peter said, explaining that the beams on which the unusual house is hung are strong enough to support a high-rise office tower.
Ellen admitted that she “probably drove the architect crazy” with her list of requirements, including moving the bedroom window so that it caught just the right angle of the rising sun and a bit of the roof edge to frame it.
Peter can truly call his bathroom his own. After several attempts at translating Gray’s wishes, architect Cunningham threw up his hands and Peter designed the bathroom himself.
From their rented home in Leucadia, the Grays visit their dream house about twice a week because “we want everything to be just as we have planned. Often what looks right in a drawing isn’t the same when it is in place, so we check each little thing out,” Peter said.
One major change wrought after one of the Grays’ visits was relocation of the massive fireplace from the living room into a den because the chimney blocked a bit of the impressive view. The view is the main thing, Peter explained, and the fireplace can give off its rosy glow just as well in a less-conspicuous place.
Peter gives Cunningham full credit for his architectural creativity, but he also lauds builder Olsen for turning Cunningham’s sketches into reality. Olsen is also an architect, Gray said, and “is really a stickler for detail,” firing more than one subcontractor when the work was not up to his standards.
In two months, when the Grays expect to move into their dream home, will everything be perfection?
“Not quite,” Peter admitted.
There’s not as much southern ocean view as he would have liked, the coastal commissioners have not yet agreed to let him build a 60-by-8-foot swimming pool on the cliff edge, and the Cardiff bluff is just a bit too far from the Oceanside hospital to permit the anesthesiologist to respond for emergency calls to surgery. Ellen chose the Cardiff site because it was almost equidistant between her husband’s hospital and their son’s private school in La Jolla.
“I’ll have to spend more time at the hospital when on call, stay nights at times,” Peter said.
But for those evenings that he’s not on duty, there will be the most spectacular sunsets in the world waiting for him.
