Field Notes: Sea Cliff Residence
Framing, Views, and Working Within the Existing Structure.
Project Team
Contractor: FORMA Construction
Architecture: Butler Armsden Architects
Photography and video: Saul Estrada
Spring has arrived at the Sea Cliff Residence, and it shows. The landscape surrounding the home has come into full bloom, and the wider views toward the Marin Headlands, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bay have become an increasingly defining part of the project’s story, a reminder of why the site matters and why every design decision here is made with that backdrop in mind.
Inside, the project has reached a meaningful turning point. Framing is largely complete throughout most of the home, and rough-in has progressed substantially across key systems. There are still areas to button up, but the overall layout is now legible in a way it wasn’t just a few months ago. Walking the floor plate, you can begin to understand how the finished home will feel; how rooms connect, where light enters, and how circulation flows.
The large window openings are doing a lot of work at this stage. They’re bringing in expansive views and giving the interior a much stronger sense of scale and orientation. The new stair is also taking shape and establishing itself as a prominent interior element, with less rough construction and more of a preview of the finished architecture.
This update also includes a close look at the roof, which tells its own story. This is not a full replacement. The approach here is more deliberate: selectively retaining and integrating existing elements while addressing targeted repairs and updates at the eaves, penetrations, and new skylight locations that are tied to the revised interior layout. At first glance, it may read as incomplete. In practice, it reflects the kind of careful, precise thinking that goes into working within an existing structure rather than simply starting over.
Those new skylight locations mentioned above? Getting them there was a feat in itself. Crane day at the Sea Cliff Residence brought one of the more visually striking moments of the project so far, large skylight units lifted up and over the existing clay tile roof, with the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands framing the whole operation in the background. It’s the kind of image that captures something true about this type of work: even the delivery of a component requires planning, coordination, and a crew that knows exactly where to stand and when to move.
The aerial views from the roof tell the rest of the story. Terra cotta tiles carefully staged and set aside, self-adhering waterproofing membrane laid at the openings, and a team guiding each unit precisely into position. One image shows the framed rough opening for a linear skylight, a long, narrow slot cut into the roof plane, with crew members working from ladders to receive the unit from below. Another captures the crane hook directly overhead, straps still attached, as the glazed unit settles into its curb.
It’s a lot of coordination for what will ultimately read as a clean band of light inside the finished home. That’s exactly the point.
The Sea Cliff Residence is still in a rough phase, but major elements are in place, and the house is significantly further along than it was when we last checked in.
