In This Midcentury Home the Terrazzo Floor Creates a Color Palette That Explores Femininity, Nature, and Softness

AD100 firms Geremia Design and Terremotto worked with Marsden Architecture to restore the glass-walled, postwar Joseph Eichler house for recent empty nestersThe midcentury home in Marin County with interior design by AD100 firm Geremia Design and architecture by Marsden Architects. AD100 landscape design firm Terremoto reorganized the rear landscape around the pool and outdoor entertaining, with a cranberry Heath Ceramics waterline tile chosen to pick up the warmth of the ExCinere volcanic-ash tile on the chimney. The surrounding hills remain a constant backdrop. The construction is by Range Builders.For a young family of four, the arrival of a second daughter sharpened the constraints of San Francisco life—namely less square footage at higher costs—eventually leading them north to Marin County. The parents, a tech entrepreneur and a brand strategist, soon discovered what the wife remembers as “these weirdo little midcentury homes that people weren’t really into.” A development of glass-walled postwar houses by Joseph Eichler appealed to her husband’s interest in modernism, while the sameness in the neighborhood offered another draw: the chance to make one home distinctly their own. In 2011, they bought an atrium model and renovated it with a period-conscious hand.While the architecture drew them in, the neighborhood gave them a reason to stay. “We really found our home here, found our community,” says the wife. The residents became the kind of friends who moved easily between one another’s houses, watched one another’s children grow up, and even traveled together—a group of 17 once decamped to Greece with the kids in tow.ExCinere volcanic-ash tile turns the chimney into a glossy, earthen-toned focal point in the living room. A vintage Johannes Andersen curved walnut sofa, upholstered in Dedar’s pale blue Marabou, faces Milo Baughman lounge chairs covered in terra-cotta Tibor Brecon; the rug is Vandra Rugs’ Carpatian Soft Dual Diamond Twill. A saturated custom stain transforms the plywood walls of the mudroom, where polished-chrome Patton hooks from Rejuvenation punctuate the surface. Range Builders’ Nic Altamura fashioned the floating bench from one of the house’s original beams, giving a salvaged piece of the old structure a new use. Vertical wood slats wrap the entry and screen views into the atrium beyond. A vintage Swiss exterior wall lamp, circa 1970s, sourced through Rayon Roskar, punctuates the otherwise restrained material palette. In 2019, when the husband’s work uprooted the family to Seattle, the pair kept the Eichler and rented it out, never quite thinking of the move as permanent. “My wife is from California and to unroot her from this state seemed impossible,” the husband says. A few years later, the couple considered themselves “almost empty nesters” and began planning their return. The goal was less about preserving the interiors than preserving the experience of living in them—the views, the light, the relationships between rooms. “We were ready for something new,” she says. “We were ready to make bold choices.”They assembled an integrated team, bringing in Marsden Architects for the architecture, Lauren Geremia of AD100 firm Geremia Design to rethink the interiors, AD100 firm Terremoto to reshape the landscape, and Range Builders to execute the renovation. On the surface, many of the structural moves were subtle. Part of the garage became an office, while the primary bath gained double sinks and a water closet. The 1,800-square-foot layout was configured to work harder without sacrificing familiar sight lines. Underneath, the intervention was more radical. Once the 60-year-old house was opened up, the team discovered essentially no rebar in the original foundation. Ultimately, they lifted the structure to pour a new one, rebuilding plumbing, electrical, and drainage systems along the way. “The things you don’t necessarily notice right away,” says principal architect Ryan Marsden.In the media room, Geremia Design’s custom sofa, upholstered in Schumacher’s Gainsborough Velvet in Mocha, sits on a MOS + Urban Fabric rug. A 1960s Kazuo Motozawa ceiling lamp from Modernity hangs in the corner. A vintage 1970s European chandelier from Morentz hangs above the homeowners’ existing dining table and chairs. Claire Oswalt’s Windfalls and Felled Things IV, 2025, from Rebecca Camacho Presents hangs against the slatted wood wall; ceramic planters are by Ren Ceramics. A rug by Nordic Knots grounds this blue-and-green room, where a vintage Scandinavian tripod chair pulls up to a custom desk. Michael Anastassiades sconces from The Future Perfect illuminate the workspace; the painting is Nana Kuromiya’s Pink scratch - Soul boat, 2026, from ATLA. A custom Geremia Design desk overlooks the atrium in the newly carved-out office. A Tekiò Horizontal pendant by Santa & Cole hangs overhead, joined by a vintage Nanna Ditzel Model 114 chair and Laurel Lamp Company Mushroom lamp, both sourced through De Angelis. A Sardine chaise by Hopie Hill, Io Pauwen, and Kalon, sourced through Marta, sits beside the atrium pond. Visible through the glass is Saif Azzuz’s Lekwo’hl ’ue-muue’mo’w (The mourning filled the air), 2022, from Anthony Meier Gallery. That same nearly invisible precision emerges in the custom terrazzo floor, which became Geremia’s “launchpad” for the interiors. Its aggregate picks up colors repeated throughout the house, while the Mondrian-inspired grid of brass aligns with window jambs, cabinetry, and door openings. Up close, Geremia says, it’s “kind of like sand,” quiet from afar, but full of color and movement at close range. Heath tile, wood, stainless steel, deeply colored stone, and softer blues and greens build from there.An emphasis on materiality was particularly important in a home with so little conventional wall space. With so much of the house given over to glass, art could play only a limited role. For Geremia, a painter as well as a designer, that put even more pressure on the materials to supply “that sensibility, that texture, that hand.” Rather than reproduce a textbook midcentury palette, Geremia wanted “an Eichler that explored femininity and nature and softness.”Custom cabinetry by Geremia Design and Shada Build & Design wraps a Viking oven. Chambers Art & Design fabricated the stainless-steel countertop, backsplash, and integrated sink. A custom wool bedspread by Marina Contro brings broad bands of burgundy to the primary bedroom. Vintage Danish pendants from Modernity flank the bed, while a Nomad Rugs floor covering and artwork by Rob Reynolds round out the room. The sculptural wall shelf and mirror is Martino Gamper’s OWALL on WALLNUT, 2023, from Blunk. Tanzania onyx wraps the tub in the bathroom, its dramatic rust-and-cream veining set against Heath Ceramics White Pumice tile. Waterworks shower fittings and a custom metal shower frame by Chambers Art & Design add cooler, reflective notes; the floor is the home’s custom hand-poured terrazzo. Two shades of Heath Ceramics tile give the primary bath the “ocean-and-sky” quality Geremia envisioned, while reflective metalwork and glass keep the enclosed room luminous. Custom millwork was designed by Geremia Design and fabricated by Shada Build & Design; the shower frame is by Chambers Art & Design. Outside, Terremoto approached the garden with a similar balance of continuity and reinvention, nodding to the home’s midcentury origins without slipping into pastiche. Little changed in the front yard where mature agaves remained. In the back, the landscape was reorganized as a series of outdoor rooms centered on entertaining and wellness: kids in the pool, friends lingering with drinks, soaks in the hot tub, respite in the sauna. The cranberry-colored pool tile was chosen to echo the warmth of Geremia’s lava-stone chimney, pulling the interior palette outward.Nearly everything is designed for gathering. Seating wraps the pool. The television stays out of the main living space. The kitchen opens toward the grill and pizza oven. “The house works so hard,” the wife says, likening it to a Swiss Army knife. “It feels really good when it’s just the three or four of us. But a 35-person cocktail party? No problem.”The bedroom layers olive and ochre tones with a vintage Le Klint amber glass lamp from De Angelis, Morrow Soft Goods striped bedding, and a Welsh Knot Garden blanket by Melin Tregwynt. The painting is Greta Waller’s Untitled, 2025, from Fernberger Gallery. Geremia Design paired custom millwork by Shada Build & Design with Heath Ceramics White Pumice field tile and a Waterworks faucet in nickel. The custom mirror was fabricated by Joinery Structures, the sconces are RBW’s Chip, and the Jonah Takagi vessel is from Marta. Fittingly, some of the house’s most personal additions came from longtime partygoers. Friend and carpenter Serge Gerlach made the hulking butcher-block counter from walnut he had collected through a network of woodworkers around Marin. The piece took 18 months to complete and spent more than a year in his living room while he arranged the cut blocks to his liking. Now homemade pizzas are sliced on its surface and charcuterie is laid out directly on top.Gerlach’s wife, artist Brody Reiman, created a ceramic pendant cast from an afghan the husband’s grandmother knitted for him. The textile dissolved in the making process, leaving its pattern impressed in clay. The husband calls pieces like the lamp “instant nostalgia”—new objects already imbued with history. But Geremia has a different takeaway. She sees the collaborations as emblematic of the project: “The community helped build this house, and in many ways they were building it for the community.”The backyard wellness area includes a compact Huum sauna, positioned to take in the garden through a broad arched window—part of Terremoto’s larger plan for quieter moments as well as entertaining. Laure JolietNot a subscriber? 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