Our featured home today is an early and exceptional shingle style residence designed by John Hudson Thomas. The Leo and Ella Dungan house is one of Thomas’ most endearing and creative early designs. Its conglomeration of highly peaked roofs straddle a burbling brook creating an almost surreally picturesque setting. The exterior of the home was originally all shingle which likely would have only served to accentuate its riparian charm, but at some point plaster was added lending it a bit more Tudor flavor.
The home owes a clear debt of gratitude to the early work of Bernard Maybeck, but in the heavily wooded interiors, Thomas’ trademark oversized details and tendency toward simplifying geometric abstractions is readily apparent. It is a truly inspired piece of First Bay Region architecture by one of the East Bay’s best.
What an absolutely beautiful house, like a Maybeck dream…