Duhring Residence

The Duhring house reflects Harris’s transition from a strict modern vocabulary to a softer style influenced by his increasing involvement with arts-and-crafts historicism. Harris had recently left California to become the head of the newly formed architecture program at the University of Texas resulting in Hervey Parke Clark, of the San Francisco firm Clark & Beuttler, becoming the project’s supervising architect. The siting of the house takes advantage of views of the bay and Marin County’s Mount Tamalpais to the northwest and San Francisco to the southwest. Similar to the plan he used for his iconic Havens House, Harris uses the garage to announce the residence on the street before the visitor passes through a external passage to reach the front door. From the west the house appears as a series of pitched-roof cottages. Facing the Common, the south elevation appears as a long, one-story unit, its three divisions reflect the interior uses behind them and have echoing gardens.

Scott placed a brick patio outside the dining room, a small garden outside the kitchen, and a Japanese-style design for the entrance garden that combined stepping-stones with flowering trees and shrubs.