The Kip House by Donald Olsen is on the market in Berkeley

Berkeley’s status as a hotbed of technological innovation can be mirrored by its architectural legacy. This home by Donald Olsen at 775 San Diego Road is in search of solely its third custodian because it was accomplished in 1954, constructed for pioneering Silicon Valley engineer and physicist Arthur Frederic Kip.

The Kip House was commissioned in 1952. Kip (1910 – 1995) spent 1 / 4 of a century on the UC Berkeley physics division working in experimental physics, serving to lay the foundations for the semiconductor business that might ultimately remodel the fortune, demographic and international significance of this a part of Northern California.

Kip was additionally an admirer of European modernism and the ethos and strategy of the Bauhaus. Following World War II (during which he served in Anti-Submarine Warfare Research), he was ready to fee a shiny younger native architect, Donald Olsen, to design a home that mirrored his aesthetic preferences {and professional} ethos. The home was to exemplify ‘precision, clarity, logic, and innovation.’

Olsen (1919-2015) was a disciple of Walter Gropius, certainly one of many pioneering German architects and designers who had arrived in America through the UK following their escape from pre-war Germany. Olsen studied below Gropius on the Harvard Graduate School of Design, ultimately occurring to work for Eliel and Eero Saarinen, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Californian agency Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons, liable for Case Study House #3.

On his personal, Donald Olsen by no means overpassed European Modernism, whilst lots of his contemporaries went on to evolve the model to create the timeless type of Mid-Century Modernism that has turn out to be so carefully related to the West Coast. The Kip House serves as a transitionary work. The rigour and ease of the entrance façade is clearly Bauhaus-inspired, however as the home steps up the hillside it opens up into the wooded panorama, turning into extra intimate and low-key.

Kip’s home sits alongside Olsen’s personal home, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a City of Berkeley Landmark, and was revealed within the influential Arts & Architecture journal in 1954. The home’s place on the slope is totally exploited by Olsen’s split-level plan, which includes a dwelling house throughout the higher flooring, set beneath the shallow pitched roof.

The fundamental dwelling house on the entrance of the home has a proto-high tech balcony cantilevered out from the façade, alongside a dwelling space and research. Steps within the centre of the plan lead all the way down to a kitchen and eating room with direct entry on to the deck and rear yard. In whole, there’s 5,706 SF of out of doors house, and 1,904 SF of indoor house, in addition to a automobile port.

The architectural association permits the occupants to stay within the treetops, together with the first bed room suite on the rear of the property. Two further bedrooms are situated on the decrease degree.

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A bed room and dressing space on the entrance of the home

A bed room and dressing space on the entrance of the home

Bespoke unique cabinetry within the Kip House

The third bed room within the Kip House

Following the loss of life of Kip’s spouse Joan, the home went on to be owned by a outstanding native lawyer who proved to be a sympathetic custodian of this distinctive home. She engaged architectural historian Pierluigi Serraino to doc the home’s historical past and seek the advice of on refined however obligatory updates to protect its distinctive qualities. Now a brand new proprietor is required to proceed the legacy.

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The home seen from the highway

The balcony on the entrance facade

Kip House lounge element

The principal bed room on the higher degree

The yard features a bespoke mid-century hen home