At the Top: QuarryHouse Wins 2022 Pinnacle Award for Pacific Heights Palazzo
Ed and Missy Westbrook recently attended the StonExpo at TISE 2023 in Las Vegas to accept the 2022 Pinnacle Award. QuarryHouse won in the Residential Interior/Exterior Single Family category for its Pacific Heights Palazzo project from the prestigious Natural Stone Institute. Henry Clay Smith, known as "The Hillside Architect," designed the historic San Francisco mansion for industrialist Milton S. Ray in 1927. The stonemasons collaborated with Skurman Architects, Tucker & Marks Design, Level 10 Construction, and Zeterre Landscape Architecture on the restoration and renovation of the Italian Renaissance-style estate. QuarryHouse's involvement began with the Grand Entry, where an intarsia marble floor features Oro Toscano medallions etched with Emperador Medium on a field of Botticino Classico.
From the villa's entry, a lyrical three-story Botticino Classico marble staircase winds ribbon-like up through the spine of the building. Because the veining needed to match throughout, the stonemasons spent over a year sourcing marble blocks. They worked with QuarryHouse Atelier Verona in Italy on the specifications, along with their Italian partners Atlantide Marmi and CITCO. A 3D model of the staircase in the CATIA program addressed the challenges of fabricating large stone pieces with tight-flowing turns. The model allowed the US and Italian teams to coordinate the marble with the staircase's massive steel frame.
Before leaving the workshop, the team scanned the finished stone to ensure that the hundreds of components fit. These technologies allowed QuarryHouse to work to a tolerance of 1/32nd on many of the visible joints. Each baluster in the staircase was post-tensioned to make them earthquake-resistant. On-site, the team installed the stairs precisely. "The staircase was especially nice, with the curving aspect of the ramp and twist, done with such fine craftsmanship. In the old days, only the best stone carver in the shop would get to work on a piece like that ... when you isolate a piece like that and look at it in three dimensions, it's basically a bent piece of stone. What a great project," the 2022 Pinnacle Award judges commented.
Other highlights of QuarryHouse's interior work are the seven-and-a-half-baths, including the Primary Bath, which encompasses several rooms. A Tea Rose Marble in the wife's dressing room is juxtaposed with the black Portoro in her husband's dressing room. Onice Avorio and Emperador Light mix in the powder room. The combination continues in the bath, shower, and water closet with Calacatta Oro and Calacatta Toscano to create the intricate inlay showing dramatic veining. A subterranean Grotto and Pool segues to the Italianate Garden. QuarryHouse complimented the landscaping with a courtyard centered by a fountain of intertwined dolphins. For the fountain sculptures, urns, and rosettes, the stonemasons selected Talla Marble.
Ed Westbrook with Buddy Ontra former President of the Natural Stone Institute
