A timeless home designed by Richard Whitaker of Sea Ranch fame gets a second life

The original window wall in the living area was reconfigured to maximize views to the water

If interior designer Justine Macfee were to list her ideal home locations, her first choice would be Lake Tahoe, her second choice would be Sea Ranch, an architecturally groundbreaking planned community built in the 1960s on the California coast. 

So when contractor TJ Glidden of Tahoe City’s TJ Glidden Construction contacted her about updating a West Shore lakefront property and she realized the original architect was Richard Whitaker, one of Sea Ranch’s four principal architects, “I just about fell over in excitement,” Macfee says. “I am a huge fan of Sea Ranch.” 

Whitaker designed just two homes around Lake Tahoe: his personal residence in Tahoe City in 1980, and this West Shore property, built in 1986 and familiarly known to the design team as “Sea Ranch at Tahoe.” 

Set on 2.7 acres in Tahoma, the home has been owned by the same Bay Area family for 30 years, allowing three generations a base to enjoy Lake Tahoe. The site includes a guesthouse and two piers, while the main home features skylights and redwood windows and showcases the iconic industrialized barn-style architecture for which Sea Ranch is celebrated.

The team preserved the architectural lines of the loft, which showcases the “industrialized barn style” for which Sea Ranch was famous

But the house was showing its age, and its lakeside location on a north-facing cove of Tahoe’s West Shore left it exposed to extreme easterly winds and big snows. Between the elements and a dated design, the homeowners knew it was time for a remodel and contacted Glidden in 2020. 

“The main house was tired,” Glidden says. “It was usable but really needed a refresh. The guesthouse was in disarray and so badly needed to be updated.”

Glidden worked with Todd Mather and Ron Driller on permitting and architecture, and credits much of the remodel’s design success to Macfee, of Justine Macfee Interior Design. 

“Our clients didn’t really have specific ties to Sea Ranch or the aesthetic, but I felt it was my duty to maintain the integrity and understanding of the core principles of [Whitaker’s] intent throughout the process,” Macfee says. “Large changes needed to be made to make it more functional for today and the next generation of our clients, but most of the bones of the home we kept intact.”

Originally, Glidden says, the team believed they’d have to replace about 30 percent of the home due to rot and structural and design changes. “It went up to 60 percent when we discovered the extent of the rot and added structural and design influences,” he says.  

The exterior was kept in the same style to retain its old Tahoe charm. On the interior, the owners wanted to rework the floor plan to accommodate their three-generation family plus the large gatherings they often host. The footprint remained largely intact, though Glidden adds that “tweaks were made in many areas for better use and flow.”

In the living room, the window wall was streamlined, turning six windows into two larger ones to maximize the view to the water. Seating is abundant, and the pitched-ceilinged skylights—part of Whitaker’s original design—were retained, though the glass was replaced and modernized. 

A counter-high window flips open for ease of outdoor entertaining

The pine paneling here, and throughout the home, is a mix of original and new wood, and presented a challenge in matching the two. “Getting that white lacquer finish just perfect was an art project within its own,” Macfee says. “Every inch of the home needed to be sanded and refinished, and the older pine would take the finish different from the new boards, so it was an ever-evolving color to get just right.”

For the kitchen and dining area, the owners wanted to enlarge the tiny, walled-off galley kitchen to allow seating for 22 people. 

To this end, Glidden and Macfee redesigned the space to include a gourmet kitchen with island seating, a breakfast nook and an oversized table. Custom cabinetry by Centerline Cabinets plays against natural quartzite countertops and a custom range hood with a built-in metal shelf. 

The island is painted a vibrant, nautical blue, a color that repeats in the breakfast nook upholstery and in the nearby bar, which includes wine storage and ice, and is tiled and painted in Tahoe blues. Macfee custom-designed the large dining table, which she paired with Fyrn chairs and centered under a dramatic Jonathon Browning chandelier. 

A counter-high window swings open to outdoor counterspace, allowing drinks and dishes to easily pass back and forth during al fresco meals. Slider doors from the living room provide access to the roughly 1,000-square-foot deck, which was torn down and completely rebuilt in a clear heart redwood, with railings by Mountain Forge. 

The deck, where Glidden and Macfee had one of their first COVID-era meetings with the owners, had been redone multiple times over the years and included a stairway that the TRPA hadn’t approved, which held up construction for roughly eight months. It was also a major source of the home’s rot. Because of the weathering, Glidden took every measure to protect against the elements. 

“Concrete walls were built to support the deck and the massive amount of rock wainscoting,” Glidden says. He also installed rain gutters and ice melt systems, heated French drains and gutter downspout drains, drilled holes into the concrete to alleviate water buildup, and added powered vents to move air under the deck. 

A custom-designed table by Justine Macfee Interior Design is positioned under a Jonathan Browning chandelier

“This deck is the main zone in the summers,” Glidden says.

Back indoors, a luxurious primary suite is on the first floor beyond the kitchen, with another three bedrooms on the second level. The upstairs landing provides a lofted view of Tahoe through the living room windows, while the sloped and skylight-dotted hallway from there features built-in benches offering reading areas or additional sleeping spaces. An upstairs walkway connects the upper level with the driveway, allowing a shortcut in the winter and easier access to the three upstairs bedrooms. 

Each bedroom has its own color palette, most noticeable in the supergraphic on the closets’ sliding barn doors. Beyond distinguishing the bedrooms, this functions as an homage to the late Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, who pioneered supergraphics in the 1960s at Sea Ranch.

While the team began with the main house design, construction commenced with the 1,616-square-foot guesthouse, located nearer the entry of the property, which took a year to complete and served as living space during the main house remodel. 

Glidden notes that the guesthouse showed evidence of about four to five previous remodels. “Ultimately,” he says, “we pretty much gutted the house.” 

Now, the three-story guesthouse functions as a mudroom and living space for visiting family. On the bottom floor, lockers, cubbies, a boot rack and coat area combine with durable tiling to accommodate gear for all seasons. 

Bright, funky colors make the guesthouse kitchen a more whimsical space than the main house

The second floor includes a small but bright kitchen accented in mustard yellows and dark green. A table with built-in bench and a cozy TV area, plus a few fun guestrooms, round out this main floor, while a ladder reaches a bunk room on the third floor.

“The design used playful color and pattern in tile and accent paint, while we painted the bones of the spaces in a warm white for that nautical cottage feel,” Macfee says. 

Between the main house and the guesthouse, the property has been lovingly restored, paying respect to its famed architect while undertaking a classic makeover, making it more resilient and usable for its current owners, and for generations to come. 

“This is a legacy project that I am so grateful and proud to have been a part of,” Macfee says. “Working on one of the most beautiful compounds on Lake Tahoe, owned by such a kind and generous family, is what designing in Tahoe is all about to me.”

Award: Lakefront Preservation

Building Design: Richard Whitaker (original);
TGM Architect; Ron Driller Architect (remodel)

Builder: TJ Glidden Construction

Interior Design: Justine Macfee Interior Design

Landscape Design: NA

Square Feet: 3,097 main home; 1,616 guesthouse