Some oenophiles indulge their hobby with wine cellars and tasting rooms. One Northern California homeowner took it a step further: He commissioned an agricultural outbuilding specifically for making wines. Having staked out several of his 10 acres in Sonoma County for growing grapes, he wanted a serious space where he could ferment his harvest and produce small amounts of high-quality vintages.
Architect Mark Horton had never designed a winery before, but that didn’t faze him. “It was somewhat analogous to doing a restaurant,” he says. “A wine expert helped the owner figure out what he needed in the way of equipment, and we designed the space into which all these things were placed.” The actual wine making takes place on the building’s lower level, where three fermentation rooms (one for each grape type) lead into a larger production area. In this latter room the grapes are initially crushed and barreled. After a stay in the fermentation room, the wine is bottled and aged for an additional period. The barn’s upstairs encompasses an office area where the owner takes care of marketing and accounting tasks related to his fledgling wine business.
Horton likes to design outdoor spaces as well as built ones. In addition to the wine barn, he and staff designer Maura Fernandez Abernathy designed a remodel to the main house and worked with a landscape architect on some refinements to the existing landscaping. He sited the outbuilding about 150 yards from the main residence, creating an edge to the expanse of open land in between them. A standing-seam metal roof on both structures helps link them visually, but the wine barn’s cold-rolled steel and glossy wood-composite panel siding give it its own distinctive identity.
According to Horton, the most difficult part of the design process was the red tape. “We did have a pretty steep learning curve on the permitting,” he says. “There are a lot of code requirements for an agricultural building used to make wine, both on the building and planning side.” But the piles of paperwork are gone now. He, contractor Jeff Cisi, and their client have made a utilitarian building into a beautiful object to be enjoyed and appreciated—much like a glass of fine wine.
Project Credits
Builder: J. Bradford Construction, Rohnert Park, Calif.
Architect: Mark Horton/Architecture, San Francisco
Landscape architects: William Peters Landscape Architect, San Rafael, Calif., and Michael Golan Landscape Design, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Structural engineer: Yoshioka Associates, Petaluma, Calif.
Living space: 2,900 square feet
Site: 10 acres
Construction cost: Withheld
Photographer: Matthew Millman
Resources: Dishwasher: Asko; Entry doors/windows: Pacific Western; Exterior siding: Parklex; Hardware: FSB; Plumbing fittings/fixtures: Kohler.
