Recent Vintage
How a Bay Area couple created a romantic Napa estate from scratch.
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The fun truly begins after snaking up the property’s half-mile driveway, which deposits visitors in a basketball court–size piazza filled with polished pebbles and anchored by a stone fountain with a Bacchus-like head spouting water into a massive trough.
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Entry to the Stephens estate is gained through a pair of weathered Louis XVI
doors, one of many sets of antique portals that transport guests across
the
Atlantic and back in time. An Arizona flagstone path and flowering
gardens give way to another set of doors, the
metal handiwork of
landscape architect Jack Chandler. His arched creations are
laced with
a pattern of cabernet leaves that pay tribute to the owners’ well-regarded D.R.
Stephens Estate Cabernet
Sauvignon.
Once through the main breezeway, with its moody New Orleans lanterns and
weathered Louis XVI table, an intimate dining room sits on the right,
dominated
by a massive French wine country–themed landscape
commissioned from noted Napa artist Rod Knutson. Overhead hangs a
distinctive 19th- century bronze chandelier from Florence, one of only
a few
Italian interlopers on Trish’s French dream. Another set of
floral-themed Chandler gates leads into an expansive wine
grotto.
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“And here’s one of my favorite touches, although my kids think it’s a bit nutty,” Trish says with a laugh, pointing to two areas of the dining room’s smooth yellow walls that appear to have rough stone blocks protruding from the adjoining breezeway. “The idea is to give that sense that you’re in a newer part of a very old place.”
That mission continues on the other side of the breezeway, where the living
room features a limestone fireplace that looks to have warmed the bones
of land
barons in centuries past. In fact, Trish designed the ornate
piece, had it carved in Italy and assembled in the
States, where it was
chipped and scuffed to achieve a distressed appearance.
Four wood
ceiling beams sourced from a 200-year-old chateau in the south of France
simultaneously contrast and
complement the look.
Patricia Hamilton Stephens
415.567.8227
Sandy Walker
Walker & Moody
Architects
415.885.0800
www.walkermoody.com
