There are many reasons to want a tiny house on the Russian River.
For Mark Jensen and Johanna Grounder, the draw was partly emotional: Mr. Jensen spent part of his childhood in the area around Healdsburg, California. Also, his San Francisco-based architecture firm, Jensen ArchitectsProjects were made there. And it was an easy hour-and-a-half drive north from the couple’s loft in the city.
“Perhaps the most important thing is that it’s incredibly beautiful,” Mr. Jensen, 62, said.
In 2012, a couple on a limited budget looked at unloved properties in Healdsburg’s Fitch Mountain neighborhood. Eventually, they found a house on a shoulder of the river that was in worse shape than a typical fixer-upper: a derelict, structurally unsound building that had been illegally converted into apartments, with outside spaces overgrown with weeds.
“When Mark went through, I was screaming, ‘No, no, no — don’t stop, don’t stop,'” said Ms. Grounder, 63, who has a degree in architecture and Designs exhibitions and light installations. “But after beating this whole tragedy of destruction, we walked out on this little dirt deck, probably risking our lives, and it was like, ‘Oh, my God.'”
The view, it turned out, was breathtaking.
Demolishing the building, clearing the site, building a new building and resolving the laundry list of violations attached to the property will not be easy. “But being either clever architects – or naive and stupid – we thought we could make it work,” Mr Jensen said.
They closed on the property in October for $148,000. From the beginning, they knew they would be limited to building within the footprint of the existing structure. But even before they could develop plans and obtain the necessary permits, they needed to remove the illegal apartments.
“We had to get it down to where we started before the planning and building department would talk to us about our remodel,” Mr. Jensen said.
At the same time, he and Mrs. Grounder spent a weekend hacking away at the foliage that grew around the house, and were surprised by what emerged. “We’ve got all these beautiful terraces along the river, with handmade concrete work and abalone shell and tiles embedded in them,” Mr Jensen said. “It was like excavating Pompeii.”
It wasn’t until 2014 that they finally started building their new home. What they discovered was a plan to keep the exterior concrete work, strengthen the existing foundation, and build a small, ramshackle house on top.
“We really wanted a little rough-and-tumble retail space that we could poke around in,” Ms. Grounder said. “We didn’t want anything precious.”
In a 400-square-foot unfinished basement, they created a 600-square-foot, double-height living space with a 315-square-foot sleeping loft overhead. Because the path is at the top of the lot, which slopes all the way down to the river, the front door opens into the loft level and a spiral staircase leads to the main living space.
To create the kitchen, they installed stainless steel base cabinets along one wall. For a work surface, they added a wooden trestle table that Mr. Jensen made himself. A rolling cart tucked under the table provides extra storage for pots and pans, and lights are hidden in the ceiling opening.
A Malm fireplace anchors the living room, and the dining area is arranged around a long Quaderna dining table, designed in 1972 by Italian collective Superstudio. The table is reminiscent of the time he spent working for Superstudio’s founder, Florence-based architect Cristiano Torraldo de Francia, in the 1980s.
Most of the construction was completed by 2016 at a cost of about $500,000. But Mr. Jensen and Ms. Grounder continued to tinker and customize the property in later years, adding decks and planted terraces.
A deck with a retractable awning runs the full width of the home off the living space. Another, near the water, has a metal mesh structure that doubles as a pergola over an outdoor dining area.
“It’s a metal mesh that’s normally used for stairs, so it’s tough and strong when it floods,” Mr Jensen said. “But the holes also create this beautiful flooded light in the space below, which we call the cabana.”
Living on many levels is exciting, but not always easy. “There are 72 steps between the river and the road,” Mr Jensen said. “And, inevitably, when we go to the river to have lunch, we forget something.”
To ease the burden of carting items back and forth, they devised a creative solution: a wicker basket on a rope that could be hoisted from the deck of the primary living space.
Although the house was meant to be a second home, the couple moved in full-time at the start of the pandemic and turned the basement into a home office. They still have their San Francisco loft, but they now spend most of their time in Healdsburg.
“It’s really hard to jump in the car and go up the mountain every day when I’m here looking at the river,” Ms Grounder said. “I go to town, but kicking and screaming, now we’ve tasted the other side.”
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