When Dave Brubeck was discharged from the army after World War II, his dad presented him with a $1,000 war bond as a welcome-home gift. The jazz pianist used the modest nest egg to purchase a small plot of land near the peak of the Oakland Hills in 1949, years before he became a household name. At first, Brubeck and his wife Iola couldn’t afford to build a home on the 50-by-100 foot lot, which was steep and heavily wooded.
And instead of removing the property’s large trees, they wanted to build around them. “What we usually see in hillside construction are vertical, multi-level houses that hug the slope. This house is horizontal, with a single, primarily level set atop a pinnacle,” Morris said. It would take Brubeck about five years to save up enough money for construction, which gave Thorne plenty of time to design the blueprint.