Merit Award Best Kitchen in a Custom Home 3,000 to 5,000 Square Feet
Manhattan Beach, Calif.
Lots are tight in Manhattan Beach, Calif. It’s a fact of life that prompts many builders to go vertical to compensate for floor plans limited to 23 feet in width. When builder Matt Morris ended up with 9½-foot kitchen ceilings with cabinetry running clear to the top, he realized he needed a counterweight. The solution: a custom copper and antique brass vent hood.
ch060401053l19.jpg From there, other handsome details in this eclectic French country kitchen fell into place, including a walnut butcher block island top, Calcutta marble countertops and backsplash, and a Rohl Shaw farmhouse sink. Beadboard under a bank of paned glass cabinets creates a vintage “china hutch look.” The 12-inch-plank hickory pecan floors were purposely speced at a lower grade to show knots and imperfections. “People will be tracking in sand from the beach, so we thought a distressed look made the most sense,” Morris says.
Entrant/Builder/Interior designer: Matt Morris Development, Manhattan Beach, Calif.; Architect: Bartosik Design & Planning, Manhattan Beach; Photographer: Everett Fenton Gidley.
The compartmentalized layout of this island home left much to be desired. What the owners craved was a more fluid, open space, flooded with natural light. The problem was, they also wanted display niches for the art pieces they had procured in their travels. And display niches required walls.
Studio Becker resolved this request with cut-outs in partition walls that extend the sight lines deeper into the house. Each cut-through window is sized to match a specific sculptural piece in the owners’ collection—a feat that required some structural choreography. In load-bearing walls, it meant working around studs hidden in the wall cavity.
Another challenge was achieving adequate kitchen storage without compromising views of the Ko’olau mountain ridge. For purposes of window preservation, the architects suspended a custom glass cabinet above the center peninsula. Its cool profile is complemented by warm bamboo flooring and iroko wood countertops.
Entrant/Architect: Studio Becker, Honolulu; Builder: KAN Builders, Kailua, Hawaii; Interior designer: TCB Island Interiors, Honolulu; Photographer: Angie Salbosa Photography.
Kitchen of the Year; San Francisco Photo: John Todd Photography Kitchen of the Year; San Francisco Photo: John Todd Photography Kitchen of the Year; San Francisco Photo: John Todd Photography Kitchen of the Year; San Francisco Photo: John Todd Photography Kitchen of the Year; San Francisco Photo: John Todd Photography Grand Award: Best Kitchen in a Custom Home More than 5,000 Square Feet; Mendota, Minn. Photo: Peter Kerze Grand Award: Best Kitchen in a Custom Home More than 5,000 Square Feet; Mendota, Minn. Photo: Peter Kerze Grand Award: Best Kitchen in a Remodeled Home 3,000 to 5,000 Square Feet; Bridgehampton, N.Y. Photo: Jeff Heatley Grand Award: Best Kitchen in a Remodeled Home 3,000 to 5,000 Square Feet; Bridgehampton, N.Y. Photo: Jeff Heatley Grand Award: Best Master Bath in a Custom Home; Mendota, Minn. Photo: Peter Kerze Merit Award: Best Kitchen in a Remodeled Home More than 5,000 Square Feet; Baltimore Photo: Michael Dersin Merit Award: Best Kitchen in a Remodeled Home Less than 3,000 Square Feet; St. Paul, Minn. Photo: Andrea Rugg Merit Award: Best Kitchen in a Custom Home 3,000 to 5,000 Square Feet; Manhattan Beach, Calif. Photo: Everett Fenton Gidley Special Focus Award: Interior Architecture; Kaneohe, Hawaii Photo: Angie Salbosa Photography
