Located on a peaceful street just five blocks from downtown Berkeley, Eric and Miko Gellerman’s three-level, cedar-shingled home has had several past lives: When it was originally built in 1905, it was a two-story cottage with a gable roof, which was later subdivided and remodeled with piecemeal, non-permitted work. In the ’60s, it served a stint as a commune with a bathroom-turned-darkroom rumored to have been used by landscape photographer Ansel Adams.

The random “improvements” made over the years—at one point, the dwelling had been converted into a duplex before evolving back into a single-family home—made it challenging for the Gellermans to use the space efficiently; Miko dreamed of updating the awkward “hippie kitchen” on the second floor. It was clear that it would need a total overhaul to become its current iteration as a hardworking family home for the couple and their two teenage boys, part of a multigenerational compound that includes a pied-à-terre for Miko’s parents and a shared rear backyard.

$275,000 Seismic Retrofit	$150,000 Kitchen & Bar	$93,000 Windows & Doors
$55,000 Wood Floor	$67,000 Bathrooms	$174,000 Front Facade Rehab
$65,000 Rear Deck	$51,000 Utility / Mudroom	$14,000 Stairs & Metal Rail
Grand Total: $944,000

Eric, who was the cofounder of The Wooden Duck, a now-shuttered Bay Area institution specializing in furniture made from recycled wood, knew exactly who he and Miko wanted to work with for the hefty renovation: Mike Pond, founder of Berkeley Design Build.

They’d collaborated previously for the renovation of Miko’s parents’ house, which conveniently shares a backyard with the Gellerman residence. Eric and Miko had helped her parents purchase the bungalow when the elderly neighbor had passed away. Pond and his team had taken the structure down to the studs and removed the fence between the homes, joining the backyards to create a quarter-acre green space that a third neighbor now enjoys—now, all the neighborhood boys have room to roam.

Budget was a major concern for the Gellermans’ own home, and they decided on a total overall budget of $950,000 with the biggest chunk—$275,000—going toward a seismic retrofit. Thankfully, Pond also owns Oakland-based firm Linvill & Pond Architects with architect Christopher Linvill. “[Working with a design-build team] definitely led to cost savings as the architect and the contractor are in sync,” says Eric, “and they could make changes on the fly.”

Much of the budget went toward correcting the structural problems and weaknesses caused by years of slipshod work. “Before, when the spin cycle was going in the second-floor laundry room, it would shake the entire house,” says Eric. “If we had people over, they thought it was an earthquake.”

The first step was dismantling all the problematic elements. “Nothing was integrated,” says Pond. “The home was like a house of cards. To not demo the whole house and reconstruct it was quite a feat. However, because the home had existing violations, if it was demo’ed we wouldn’t have gotten it back. We had to surgically retrofit inside the existing volume to meet the existing structural and seismic codes.”

Another major move was opening up the lower level of the home, which had previously been a separate apartment. It had remained largely untouched over the years, but it was dark and suffered from a poorly executed addition.

Eric’s DIY skills came in handy throughout the process. To create a strong visual statement in the first-floor bathroom, he cut and arranged 2" x 2" end-grain squares of white oak for a bespoke wall, an example of his woodworking expertise.

Eric also tackled the front yard redesign with the help of a friend, whom he’d teamed up with before the COVID-19 pandemic. When the shutdown began, they continued as a “work pod.” Together, they built a living-roof shed to hide the garbage cans, a mail and package drop integrated into the fence, a raised deck to protect a Japanese maple tree that had been planted too close to the home, and eight planter boxes totaling 250 square feet of garden space.

The money that the Gellermans saved by doing the landscaping themselves went into replacing all of their single-pane windows and swapping the worn wood floors with new white oak.

As a finishing touch, Eric built a 35-foot dining table in the backyard so the Gellermans can have dinners al fresco with their parents, neighbors, and friends; they’ve been making meals out of produce from their “corona garden” every night since June. Overall, the project required 18 months for permitting and another 18 months for construction, but the results—an indoor/outdoor, communal lifestyle that nods back to the home’s former life—are well worth the wait.

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Project Credits:
Architect of record: Linvill & Pond Architects, Christopher Linvill and Mike Pond

Builder/General Contractor: Berkeley Design Build, Mike Pond

Structural Engineer: Verdant Structural Engineers

Wood Flooring Subcontractor: Tulip Hardwood Floors

Tile/Counter Subcontractor: Artiszen Tile Stone Mosaic

Cabinetry Design/Installation: Berkeley Design Build

Painting: Platypus Painting

Photography: Peter Lyons Photography

Stylist: Eka Japaridze