By Sarah Paynter

The specs

   -- List price: $2.095 million 
 
   -- Size: 1,750 square feet 
 
   -- 3 beds, 2.5 baths 
 
   -- Land: 3,800 square feet 

Let there be light

Jon Leafstedt and Oliver Clode's San Francisco home has no shortage of windows. There are about 70 throughout the house, some of which include stained-glass panels of purple, yellow and blue.

"The whole house just has amazing light because of all the windows," says Clode, 64, a retired retail executive who's worked at Amazon, Williams-Sonoma and Foot Locker. "I'm always in a good mood when I walk into any of the rooms."

Leafstedt and Clode paid $751,000 for the house in the city's Diamond Heights neighborhood in 2000. Fans of midcentury-modern design, the pair wanted a stylish home with a fenced-in yard for their Gordon setter dogs.

Sold on the property's indoor-outdoor layout, they became only the second owners in the home's roughly 60-year history, said Leafstedt, 63, an artist and former executive at Williams-Sonoma, Nike, Esprit and Liz Claiborne.

Built in 1962, the house has a sunken living room and an off-center, gas fireplace. Off the living room, glass doors lead out to a patio, surrounded by greenery and Glen Canyon Park beyond.

An architectural pedigree

The light-filled rooms, stained glass and indoor-outdoor setup are typical of architect Max Garcia's few residential designs. Garcia taught himself the fundamentals of architecture in 1943 while hiding from the Nazis, says his daughter Michelle Garcia Winner. Garcia, a Jewish man from the Netherlands, was confined in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, until he was liberated in 1945.

Garcia moved to the U.S. and became a licensed architect, primarily working with commercial clients like Bank of America, Intel and Pacific Bell. He ended up designing a handful of private homes during his career.

Knowing Garcia's story "tied us more to the house," says Leafstedt. "It made it so much more special."

The renovation

It was important to Leafstedt and Clode that their roughly $700,000 renovation preserve Garcia's original vision, they said. They replaced the layered, cantilevered roof as well as the windows, removed shag carpeting and updated the kitchen and bathrooms.

They also added a deck and built out the landscaping, adding succulents, trees and a giant rock that had to be craned in, said Clode.

Can't-miss features

The kitchen has a Dutch door, a breakfast nook and lots of cabinetry -- which Clode and Leafstedt added to store their eight sets of dishes, plus glassware, servingware and silverware. As former Williams-Sonoma executives, they developed a taste for elaborate tablescapes, which became a regular feature in their open-plan living and dining room.

"Having run tabletop at Sonoma, we have more dishes than most San Franciscans," says Leafstedt.

Reason for selling?

Since their retirement, Leafstedt and Clode are spending more time at their Sonoma home.

"I think the time is right to hand it over to a new steward," says Leafstedt. "This isn't a house we flipped. This is a house we hung out in for a really long time."

Market snapshot

San Francisco's real-estate market has rebounded in the past year as more residents return to the area after the pandemic, said listing agent Nina Hatvany of Compass. In suburban Diamond Heights, sales typically top out around $6 million. So far this year, six single-family homes have traded for a median $2.35 million, up from five single-family home sales of a median $1.85 million during the same period last year, according to Compass.

Write to Sarah Paynter at Sarah.paynter@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 11, 2025 15:25 ET (19:25 GMT)

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