SPACES Magazine

Chelsea is an accomplished sales and business development executive renowned for driving growth across the Bay Area real estate, technology and global finance sectors. What is your favorite corner in the world — and why? Italy. Its beauty, warmth and timelessness feed my soul, inspire me and make me feel completely at home. Which material best matches your personality: wood, glass, stone or steel and why? Wood. It is warm, grounded, resilient and full of character.

Eric Blasen cofounded the Blasen Landscape Architecture, a design studio, in San Anselmo, California. Since then he has created landscapes for places of worship, schools, corporate offices, and wineries, but his main focus is large residential gardens, for which it has garnered top American landscape architecture awards. He has taught in the Architecture Department at California College of Art, San Francisco, California, and served on many academic juries.

Let the cozy in with this autumn-inspired selection of products for the home in warm, rich hues. Yosemite National Park ’Tis the season for leaf peeping. From golden aspens to crimson maples, Mother Nature’s annual color spectacle takes center stage in scenic locales across California. Witness the awe-inspiring display this fall in Yosemite Valley, wine country’s rolling vineyards and the Cascade Range near Mt. Shasta, among many other scenic destinations across the state.

Over the years, longtime San Francisco residents Aunkur and Tina have visited wine country many times, but one trip to Sonoma changed everything, ultimately inspiring them to build a retreat of their own. “During the summer of 2017, we decided to rent a farmhouse in Sonoma for the month of July,” Aunkur recalls.

Savor wine country living with these out-of-the-ordinary finds. Robert Mondavi Winery photo Adam Rouse, courtesy of Aidlin Darling Design In the former water stop town of Oakville the most noteworthy building is Robert Mondavi Winery, the first winery built in Napa Valley since 1920 — the year Prohibition began.

Mill Valley architect Barbara Chambers of Chambers + Chambers Architects shares her design inspirations, favorite places and philosophy of timeless classical elegance. What is your favorite corner in the world — and why? Mill Valley — it has everything bottled up in a tiny package. It’s the best place on earth to live and work, and I’m blessed to be part of this beautiful community.

Dawn Zidonis — the cofounder and CEO of Design Bay Area and World Design Weeks — has spent over two decades championing the Bay Area as a global center for design and innovation. San Francisco Design Week (SFDW), which launched in 2006, is one of her early successes. Originally conceived as small local gathering for design professionals, the event is now an internationally recognized platform exploring the intersection of design, technology, innovation and sustainability.

How do you reimagine a childhood home as a weekend retreat for the next generation to build memories together? That was the challenge facing Rebecca Ivans Amato, owner and principal architect at Emeryville-based Amato Architecture, when a couple with grown children and grandchildren told her they were ready to renovate the husband’s childhood home in Napa.

Sitting in the expansive new sunroom of entrepreneur and philanthropist Lily Kanter’s historic hillside home in Mill Valley, among the treetops with light streaming through the windows, it’s not hard to imagine the space filled with guests. Open to a newly created great room, it’s an ideal space for entertaining a crowd.

There are few designers more iconic than Charles and Ray Eames, most famous for their chairs that came to define mid-century modern design. Four years before opening a cultural destination in Novato, the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity is offering sneak previews of the Charles and Ray Eames Collection in the East Bay. The colorful wall graphics at the entrance of an indistinct Richmond warehouse gives a hint at what’s going on inside.