GRAPHĒ

My House: Designer and Maker Nick Pourfard’s San Diego Home Might Never Be Finished

At first he wasn’t sure how to update the ’80s residence by famed midcentury architect Walter S. White. Now he’s dedicated to its constant evolution.

As it does for many, the idea of taking on a time capsule by a renowned midcentury architect gave Nick Pourfard pause. But where others might balk over the idea of how to sensitively restore one while still getting their dream kitchen, the designer and maker’s hangups with a Walter S. White–designed residence he was looking to buy in his hometown of Escondido were more over what, if anything, his own work could add to its iconic feel.

Designer and maker Nick Pourfard is constantly experimenting with his 1988 Walter S. White home in Escondido, as with a prototype of a glass sconce hanging in the entry. The sculpture in the corner is by Ben Day Todd, and the end table is by Steven Hartzog. — Designer and maker Nick Pourfard is constantly experimenting with his 1988 Walter S. White home in Escondido, as with a prototype for a glass sconce hanging in the entry. The sculpture in the corner is by Ben Day Todd, and the end table is by Steven Hartzog.

Photo by Connor Rankin

The Newton Stafford House II, built in 1988, had everything going for it. There was a butterfly roof—"one of White’s calling cards," says Nick—and a metal frame with a distinctive two-by-six lumber construction style that allowed for vaulted, open living spaces, with a wall of glass running along them. But it also had a perfectly neglected rear acreage where Nick could get up to any number of experiments, whether earth casting garden sculptures, planting cactus or fruit trees, or keeping bees. "I was pretty keen on having exactly what my dad set up for us as kids," he says, namely some land in a rural area near where he grew up that he could mold to his vision.

Now seven years since leaving his adopted homes of San Francisco and Brooklyn, and after having made a name for himself building guitars from old skateboards with his brand, Prisma, Nick has figured out what a working relationship with the White residence can look like. It shouldn’t be a sealed off relic, he says, but instead, a living, breathing monument to ephemerality. We spoke with Nick to hear about his ongoing interventions—including, yes, a kitchen refresh—how the home inspires what he decides to design and build next, and his resolution to make meaningful marks on the property that satisfy his many whims, support his design community, and cement his own legacy of constant evolution.

Nick loved the home’s swooping butterfly roof, an element of several of Walter S. White’s homes. — Nick loves the home’s swooping butterfly roof, an element of several of Walter S. White’s homes.

Photo by Connor Rankin

I’d love to know what you saw in the home. What attracted you to it? Why did you decide to buy it?

Nick Pourfard: I had lived in San Francisco, and New York for a while, but I knew I wanted to move back to Escondido, in San Diego. I grew up in a really rural area, on a dirt road in the middle of strawberry fields, kind of attached to a horse ranch, kind of attached to a nursery, and I just grew up being outside, you know? I have only good memories of childhood. So I wanted the same thing as what my dad had made for us. A lot of houses in Escondido come with land and your neighbors are farther away. I could do the types of things I wanted to do and have something that could be a lifetime project, something to grow into, something that I could bring my identity to.

This home had the land and everything I was looking for. But it’s also an architectural house, designed by Walter S. White, who did the Wave House in Palm Springs. It just blew me away. It had a butterfly roof—it looked so Japanese and so cool. There were also these crazy engineering things, like two-by-sixes for the roof slammed together. But I was torn because as a designer moving into a house that’s already so designed, that has so many characteristics that are iconic to midcentury architecture, I was a little nervous to coexist with that, you know? How could my pieces look in a space that’s already so iconic looking?

But then I sort of started to feel like it could work. I had to let go of the idea of restoration via White’s identity and kind of combine it with restoration via my identity, while considering him. I was like, what could I do that feels like me that still contributes to this era?

What are a few examples of how you brought your own identity to the home?

It was almost like the budget dropped when they did certain rooms, like the kitchen. The house has incredible windows and crazy millwork, and then when you look at the kitchen, it was like, okay, it’s just formica, and the basic white cabinet setup was really really weird and didn’t match. It had pretty basic red tiles that kind of worked. Everything just felt economical. But it didn’t make sense, either. I’m six two, the vent hood covers the burners, and I can’t even see while I’m cooking. So I just started ripping stuff out and rebuilding, but tried to mimic wood paneling that was here and color matched everything. I also rebuilt some of the soffit beams. People walk in and they think it’s always been like that. And I was like, no, you don’t even know.

The tile for the backsplash is new, too, right?

Yeah, so the tile was a challenge with a house that’s all wood. The wood is so comforting, but you need something to pull you out of that. I made friends with a company called Lofa, they’re in Guadalajara, and they push tile-making to a crazy level where there’s three dimensional stuff and really cool irregular glazes, like with broken glass bottles, or lava rocks melted down, or cutting slits in the clay and shoving pebbles into them so when they’re fired the spread open. I just wanted to support a company like that, you know?

The Spring table in the dining area, by Nick, is surrounded by a set of vintage Stool 60s by Alvar Aalto. — The Spring table in the dining area, which Nick designed after a cactus on his property, is surrounded by a set of vintage Stool 60s by Alvar Aalto.

Photo by Connor Rankin

See the full story on Dwell.com: My House: Designer and Maker Nick Pourfard’s San Diego Home Might Never Be Finished
Related stories:

In Denver, a Burnham Hoyt-Designed Tudor Seeks $4.8M

Period details are peppered with contemporary creature comforts like a pool, hot tub, and heated cabana.

130 Gaylord Street in Denver, Colorado, is currently listed at $4,895,000 by Jessica Bourke at LIV Sotheby’s International Realty.

This 1929 Burnham Hoyt Tudor, situated in Denver’s Country Club Historic District, underwent a rigorous 2017 renovation by architect Steve Ekman. The intervention prioritizes the original architectural intent, anchoring the interiors with restored brick, original timber, and stone floors.

Modern refinements—including Marvin windows, TruStile doors, and wide-plank white oak—provide a quiet contrast. The chef’s kitchen with Thermador appliances and a substantial island transitions into a beamed family room with custom millwork. Large-scale accordion doors open to the backyard with flagstone terraces, a pool, a hot tub, and heated cabana.

The upper level holds four bedrooms, laundry, and fitness space, while a soundproofed lower level offers acoustic flexibility for media or music.

Located within walking distance of Cherry Creek North and the forthcoming Cherry Creek West development, the residence balances historic preservation with contemporary utility.

Listing Details

Bedrooms: 4

Baths: 5 full, 2 partial

Year Built: 1929

Square Feet: 6,177

Plot Size: 0.25 acres

Courtesy of LIV Sotheby's International Realty

Courtesy of LIV Sotheby's International Realty

See the full story on Dwell.com: In Denver, a Burnham Hoyt-Designed Tudor Seeks $4.8M
Related stories:

From the Archive: With Just $50 a Month, These Renters DIY’d Their Way to an Ultra Funky Pad

With upscale shops as a source of inspiration, the North Carolina couple crafted a space that’s all their own, from the grid of mirrors on the wall to the troublesome hand-dyed couch.

Welcome to From the Archive, a look back at stories from Dwell’s past. This story previously appeared in the March/April 2003 issue.

When Desiree DeLong and Mike Schmidt spot a cool lamp or sofa in an upscale furnishings store, they check it out carefully. And then they figure out how they could make it for a lot less.

Using "crazy-cheap" items scrounged from the broken and returns corner at Ikea and the wood-remnants section of Home Depot, they’ve transformed an innocuous brick box in suburban Chapel Hill, North Carolina, into a temple to stylish living.

The interior exudes retro chic. Walking into the living room is like entering a tunnel—the far wall is covered with convex mirrors that reflect the space as a spherical tube. They created this effect by combining 3o $5 mirrors from Ikea. Facing the front door is a funky mirror with flame-shaped cutouts and glowing light bulbs flying in front, like moths homing in on a flame. "We went to Michaels [a craft store] and found these wedding doves," says Delong. "Then we pulled off their wings and attached them to light bulbs."

For DeLong and Schmidt, it’s thrilling to pull off minimalism for the bare minimum. Scrimping is a necessity for the young couple, who upgraded to this $700-a-month, 1,1oo-square-foot rental in August of last year. An aspiring fashion designer, DeLong, 25, grew up in a relatively poor family and learned to sew her own clothes. "I went to Catholic school and had to wear the same uniform for years," she says, "so I learned how to do alterations and fix the holes in my skirts." Local boutiques have started carrying pieces of her clothing line, Ammunition, which includes a saucy pink vinyl skirt and a dramatic Asian-inspired wrap dress with red sleeves.

Schmidt, 27, spends his days trying to stretch a small budget as the producer of a new TV show called Hip-Hop Nation. According to both of them, he is the sobering influence in the household. "I like my environment to be bright, loud, and colorful, and if I had my way there would be red shag carpet wall to wall," says DeLong. "Mike is more conventionally minimalist—concrete floors and gray walls and stainless-steel furniture." Schmidt adds: "She’ll want something, and I have to think about how it will work, so I can live in the space, too—I can’t live in a purple room."

So far, the pair has built a custom coffee table and a bookcase with doors, and are planning to construct a padded bed frame. "It’s always cooler to have something that comes from your own ingenuity and sweat rather than going out and buying something," says Schmidt. "I think the experience of making something far surpasses going into a store and putting down a credit card. That doesn’t seem an authentic way to go about populating your house with things."

The designing duo has only had one disaster. The purple velvet couch in the living room cost $5o to start, but ended up raising their laundry bills. "It was beige, and we hated the color," says DeLong. "So I was like, ‘Dude, let’s just dye it.’ We used four bottles of Rit dye and sponged it on. But the upholstery was polyester and didn’t soak up the dye, so when it dried, the couch was covered with purple powder. For the first three months, our backs and asses were purple."

Now that the dust has settled, DeLong and Schmidt are thinking about building a new sofa. "The nice thing about making your own stuff is that you have the freedom to modify it or throw it away," says DeLong. "Don’t underestimate yourself and the idea of being a thrifty homemaker. On a budget of 5o bucks a month, you can have a pretty phat house."

See more from the Dwell archive on US Modernist.

From the Archive: Forget the Machine for Living—Designer Eva Zeisel Aimed for Objects With Soul

Douglas Firs Are the Main Characters at This Sea Ranch Home Built by Four Friends

The trees dictated a cluster of four volumes that weave across the site at the famous Northern California development.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Sea Ranch, California

Architect of Record: James Leng

Design Team: Natasha Sadikin, Hoang Nguyen, and Juney Lee

Footprint: 1,600 square feet

Builder: Shawn Bettega Construction Inc.

Structural Engineer: Ware Associates

Landscape Design: Hannah Pae

Cabinetry: Joinery Structures

From the Architect: "The House of Four Ecologies is a 1,600-square-foot residence located at The Sea Ranch, conceived by a small group of longtime friends. The collective nature of the house necessitated a layout that allows for socializing, but also solitude for individual reflection and creative craft. Hence, the new home is imagined as an interconnected cluster of volumes, each holding space for privacy as well as gathering.

"A grove of three windblown Douglas firs dominates the center of the site, and to heed Anna and Lawrence Halprin’s dictum, the architecture dances lightly in-between them, paying deference to their residency, taking advantage of their presence to protect from wind and frame view corridors to scenery afar. And by positioning the house around the firs, the house can only be partially glimpsed as it appears and disappears between them.

"Each of the four volumes specifically orients and captures a moment in this transitional ecological journey. Navigating the house is like ambling through the landscape. As one journeys through the house, they are continuously connected to these transforming ecologies with views close and far, narrow and wide, framed through 17 carefully proportioned windows. The ocean and meadow anchor the house with their distant views, while the courtyard and dining room produce a more intimate encounter with nearby landscapes. Ultimately the architecture holds deep reverence for the multitude of natural environments that surround this shared sanctuary."

See the full story on Dwell.com: Douglas Firs Are the Main Characters at This Sea Ranch Home Built by Four Friends
Related stories:

Portland Housing Has a Bathroom Problem

Developers are packing as many as three into townhomes and cottages as small as 850 square feet, under the belief that they’re what the market wants. They might be right.

Last fall Julia Humphreville purchased a two-bedroom, two-story condo in Portland, Oregon’s Richmond neighborhood, around the corner from the original Stumptown Coffee and within walking distance of Mt. Tabor Park. The 900-square-foot unit is part of a new sixplex developed under the city’s residential infill zoning codes, which opened up single-family home neighborhoods to more diverse and affordable housing types. Humphreville, a clinical social worker, loves the condo’s open kitchen, high ceilings, and tiny backyard. Crucially, the $349,000 price tag allowed her to buy into a neighborhood that otherwise was too expensive for her budget. "It felt like a gem," she says.

One design feature does leave her a bit befuddled—the fact that the condo has two full bathrooms upstairs and one half bath downstairs. "Did the unit really need three bathrooms?" asks Humphreville, who shares the home with her partner. "Probably not." The dwelling has only two closets, both upstairs. "Ideally, the first floor bathroom could have been a storage closet," she says.

Over the past few years Portland has become a leader in the development of middle housing—townhomes, cottage clusters, and other dwellings that fall somewhere between single-family homes and apartment buildings—in residential neighborhoods. Lauded for their relative affordability and modern aesthetic, many of them are also drawing attention for their seemingly high bathroom counts. According to the city of Portland and local realtors, the most commonly permitted middle housing type is a two-bedroom unit with anywhere from 850 to 1,000 square feet; roughly 85 percent of them have two full bathrooms and one half bath, according to realtors, builders, and a review of Zillow listings.

The myriad bathrooms have surprised many—but not all—buyers and housing experts in part because bathrooms are among the most expensive parts of a house to build. Incorporating three bathrooms into a small home can also leave some units feeling like a warehouse for bathrooms. "They are hard not to notice," observes Lori Rissetto, a Portland realtor who has toured the units with prospective buyers. "The homes are wonderful," adds Rissetto. "But a house that is under 1,000 square feet does not need three bathrooms and three toilets to clean, especially when there is a better way to utilize the space."

A 1,000-square-foot plan from Kehoe Northwest Properties includes two bedrooms and two and a half baths. — Portland-area developer Kehoe Northwest Properties recently built several 1,000-square-foot plans in Lake Oswego that include two bedrooms and two and a half baths.

Photo by Justin Jones

Other cities including Sacramento, Spokane, and Minneapolis have changed zoning rules to allow middle housing in single family neighborhoods. But construction has been relatively sluggish and in some cases has taken a different form than the new building in Portland—for example, larger units or rental apartments.

Driving Portland’s success are the city’s "floor area ratio" requirements, which give developers a financial incentive to build more units on a single lot, according to Morgan Tracy, a senior planner with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. "It’s the secret sauce," he says, adding that a thriving ecosystem of local developers and an abundance of infill lots also give Portland an advantage.

On the leading edge, Portland is a window into a changing housing market. All these bathrooms, it turns out, are at the heart of an interregnum. Amid skyrocketing housing prices and shifting household demographics—more people are living alone or without kids—the old ways of building and buying homes are fading, says Scott Dergance, a principal at KGA Studio Architects in Denver. But new ones have yet to fully develop. "The first-time buyer is willing to have fewer bathrooms, and maybe get to an older model of how we used to build homes 60 to 70 years ago, when you would have a two-bedroom house that had one bathroom," says Dergance, who works on projects around the country. "But we’re not quite there yet. We’re in a transition period."

For their part, Portland developers who favor the two-and-a-half bathroom model say the middle market wants what it wants. "Based on our experience folks want the additional bathroom counts," says Vlad Kovtun, partner at Aker Development, a Portland-area builder that has constructed more than 350 middle housing units over the past few years. "They want the privacy."

Housing affordability and changing buyer dynamics also play a role. Many buyers are renting out rooms to offset the cost of a home. Others are purchasing homes as roommates, says Martin Kehoe, a developer who recently completed an eight-unit cottage cluster in Lake Oswego, an affluent Portland suburb. The 1,000-square-foot homes feature two bedrooms and two and a half baths, a configuration that Kehoe plans to incorporate on 300 additional middle housing lots over the next two years. "You meet some degree of market resistance when you have two bedrooms upstairs sharing the same bathroom," says Kehoe. "If you’re roommates, you’re going to have to share a bathroom, which limits the buying pool."

In some ways the abundance of bathrooms in Portland's middle housing is merely another manifestation of the bathroom inflation that has long shaped the history of home building in this country. In 1950, the typical home had only one bathroom, regardless of household size. In 1975, 20 percent of homes had two or more bathrooms—between 2009 and 2013, 80 percent of all new construction fell into that category. Today a standard market rate townhome is a two-bed, two-and-a-half-bath.

In Portland proper, city code does play a small role in middle housing bathroom design. One-third of the homes in a cottage cluster are required to include "visitability features," including a half bathroom on the ground floor. The goal is to increase accessibility for visitors with mobility challenges, says Tracy.

"You meet some degree of market resistance when you have two bedrooms upstairs sharing the same bathroom."

—Martin Kehoe, developer

The high bathroom count does come at a financial cost—adding roughly $15,000 to $25,000 per bathroom. It also leads to design and functionality challenges, typically in the areas of closet space and bedroom size. "It will shrink room size so you have to get as creative as possible," Kehoe says.

Rita Blake is dealing with some of the trade-offs. In December the financial services worker purchased a 900-square-foot, two-bed, two-and-a-half bath townhome in an East Portland neighborhood for $330,000. But in lieu of sufficient storage, she says, one and a half of those bathrooms are functioning instead as storage for kitchenware, tools, linens, and more. A single homeowner, Blake is currently pricing storage solutions that will free up the downstairs powder room for visitors and the second full bathroom upstairs for her 13-year-old niece, "who currently wrecks all my Lancôme products having makeup parties using my bathroom." Despite the headaches, Blake likes having two and a half bathrooms, at least in dwellings like hers, where the upstairs bathrooms are accessible only through the bedrooms. Plus, of all the homes she’s visited or lived in, "I don’t think there has ever been a time when I’ve thought to myself: ‘There are too many bathrooms in this home.’"

Portland architecture firm M.O.Daby Design offers a plan that gives buyers the option to use an upstairs area as a bathroom, laundry area, or storage. — Portland architecture firm M.O.Daby Design is offering an alternative to the two-bed, two-and-a-half bath plan with an upstairs room that can serve as storage or laundry.

Courtesy of M.O.Daby Design

On the industry side, developers can be reluctant to build homes with fewer bathrooms, says Matt Daby, a Portland architect whose one-and-a-half and two-bath middle housing designs push back against the standard. "Sometimes they try to check boxes based on what the real estate market is perceiving people want, when they may not actually want that," he says, adding: "If I’m only allowed 800 or 900 or even 1,000 square feet, I would sacrifice that third bathroom in a heartbeat for more storage."

Creative design can help accelerate the middle market transition, according to architects like Daby and KGA’s Dergance, yielding better living through fewer bathrooms. Developer Eric Thompson of Snug Homes, for one, has worked with Daby on three-bedroom layouts that don’t necessarily come with an extra full bathroom. One option is to separate the shower and toilet areas so different people can use the functions of a bathroom at the same time. "You don’t use as much square footage," Thompson observes, "but get the flexibility if you’re going to have multiple roommates within the context of middle housing." New Oregon state regulations tied to accessibility and affordability are also expected to catalyze new forms of middle housing—and bathroom designs.

Whether Portland’s middle housing bathroom counts are a flash in the evolutionary pan or an enduring design feature remains to be seen. For now, long-standing champions of Portland’s residential infill programs are keeping their eyes on the prize. Michael Andersen, director of cities and towns at the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, lives in Northeast Portland, where the three-bathroom layout in a nearby cottage cluster did not escape his attention. "Seems bizarre. Seems like a waste of space," Andersen said in an email. "But if this is what it takes to get freestanding homes built and sold at what would have been unthinkably low prices a few years ago—great."

Top photo by Justin Jones

—

Budget Breakdown: It’s Hard to Tell This South Phoenix Home Was Once a Convenience Store

The shelves were still fully stocked when Amy Williams purchased the property and turned it into a refined, loft-like home for $450K.

They used to be places where you might grab a Coke or a quart of milk. But in some residential pockets of North America, corner stores that have sat vacant are turning out to be prime real estate not for proprietors but for homeowners disillusioned by prohibitively expensive housing markets. This story and two others—one in Victoria, B.C., and another in the San Francisco Bay Area—share how clever owners applied pluck and perseverance to turn disused mom-and-pops into dream homes that, dollar for dollar, beat out anything they could have found doomscrolling on Zillow.

Where most people saw a closed, sagging corner store in a Central Phoenix neighborhood, interior designer Amy Williams saw a diamond in the rough—old brick walls, exposed ceiling trusses, and the kind of layered history the HGTV crowd could only dream of. "I fell in love with the idea of turning it into my home," says Amy.

Designer Amy Williams transformed a former convenience store in Central Phoenix into a place for her, partner Elias Proce, and dog Sumo to call home, with details like floating shoji-screen cabinets that double as the ideal shelf for the couple’s collection of pottery.

Photos (left to right): Don Newlen; Jesse Rieser

The 1925 building was originally The Palmdale market and was run by a succession of owners over the years. It had been closed for about six months when Amy purchased it, but everything was eerily intact, including refrigerators full of light beer and soft drinks and shelves lined with boxes of candy bars and snacks. A two-bedroom apartment that still had tenants sat behind the store, with a locked door connecting them.

The Bok teak dining set from Ethnicraft is paired with vintage Gastone Rinaldi steel-and-suede chairs. — Bok dining chairs in teak are paired with vintage ones by Gastone Rinaldi in steel and suede.

Photo: Jesse Rieser

The antique coat hooks were sourced from Etsy. A pottery collection comprised of Pre-Columbian and Kenyan pieces sits atop the shoji screen cabinets. The vintage desk lamp is by Veneta Lumi. — Antique coat hooks were sourced from Etsy. The vintage desk lamp is by Veneta Lumi.

Photo: Jesse Rieser

See the full story on Dwell.com: Budget Breakdown: It’s Hard to Tell This South Phoenix Home Was Once a Convenience Store
Related stories:

Redwood Walls Meet Terrazzo Floors in This $575K Wisconsin Midcentury

The split-level 1954 home still has many of its original finishes—plus an updated kitchen, bathroom, and powder room.

Location: 4338 Upland Drive, Madison, Wisconsin

Price: $575,000

Year Built: 1954

Renovation Date: 2026

Renovation Designer: Anthony Fenning, Fenning Construction

Footprint: 1,735 square feet (3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths)

Lot Size: 0.22 Acres

From the Agent: "4338 Upland Drive is a period-correct, midcentury-modern home in Madison’s Sunset Village. Clerestory bands catch the light and drag it across original redwood walls. The house has three bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and a 1,700-square-foot, split-level plan that feels exactly as considered as it was when it was built. The home has been thoughtfully updated—new hardwood floors, a redesigned powder room, a refreshed kitchen with period-appropriate proportions—without compromising what makes it significant. It’s nestled on a wooded lot just blocks from Hilldale, and minutes from UW and University Hospital. Some homes are renovated; this one was restored."

The terrazzo flooring at the home’s entry is original.

Photo by Shanna Wolf of S. Photography

With a lofted second floor, the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room are double height. — The double-height living room has west- and south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows.

Photo by Shanna Wolf of S. Photography

See the full story on Dwell.com: Redwood Walls Meet Terrazzo Floors in This $575K Wisconsin Midcentury
Related stories: