To New Heights

Written by Mervyn Kaufman • Styled by Jennifer Jones
Photographed by Matthew Millman

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The house is an Edwardian, not a Victorian," insists Rob Cox. "It was built in 1901." What he and his wife, Suzanne Cutts, bought in 1997 was a three-story San Francisco residence near a neighborhood of other restored "painted ladies."

According to Suzanne, "there was still a lot of the original detail, all of which we've tried to retain." Their biggest challenge was the kitchen, located on the second floor. "It had been redone on the cheap in the late 1970s, and the space was not used well. Also, its white-painted cabinets were pressboard, and there was a brick chimney rising up from the furnace that took a whole corner out of the room."

Two years ago, when the couple concluded they could live in that kitchen no longer, they sought out Tim Wong, of Buttrick Wong Architects in Emeryville, California. "We'd seen his firm's work in a magazine," Suzanne recalls. "The story showed how they utilized all of the space in such a way that I knew these were the people who could help us. We weren't going to change our kitchen's footprint."

"We could have," Cox adds, "except that there is a 100-year-old bougainvillea just outside the kitchen. It's a tree, not a vine, and its canopy crowns our deck with fuchsia-colored flowers. Tim knew he'd be working within a very narrow, defined space."

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