Kristina O’Neal’s Sonoma Home Is a Lesson in Living Well

Rip & Tan: As a born and raised Californian, what significance does this area hold for you? Was there anything specific that drew you to this property?

Kristina O'Neal: I was raised south of Sonoma in the Bay Area and everything about the region feels like home. The land itself is like a memory bank of childhood sensations, especially the natural elements that were part of growing up in the region—old oak trees, blankets of wild poppies, and the fields that move from wild and dewey in the spring to flat gold straw in the summers.

Rip & Tan: The fluidity between outdoor and in you’ve created is breathtaking—can you walk us through how you approached the design?

Kristina O'Neal: My husband and I designed the space together from the ground up. We purchased the land as acreage and lived through a couple summers in the region before setting the house location on one of the lower hills with views in every direction.

There isn’t much to the monolithic structure of the house, with its simple concrete floors and open format, but we let the framing of the views do all the work.

Rip & Tan: How did your surroundings influence your design decisions?

Kristina O'Neal: I suspect the surroundings quietly wrote the design script for every design decision we made.

The steel windows are 12 feet high and stretch nearly end to end in the house so we could capture light at all times of the day and the views from every direction. This particular Sonoma landscape is a snapshot of redwoods, pastures, vineyards, or a distant creek, all depending on which area of the house you may be sitting in at the moment.

Rip & Tan: Minimalism done well requires such precise intentionality. How did you achieve this within your own home?

Kristina O'Neal: There are so many moments in a design process where it’s easy to begin to complicate what you need or where the program starts to take over simplicity. You begin to ask yourself things like “Hmmm…Wouldn’t it be nice if we could fit another bathroom in, or a larger closet, or a chef’s style kitchen?”

We have sworn a solemn oath to maintain a reduced interior program, while also defying the natural inclination for “object” clutter over time. Some aspects of minimalism are deeply counterintuitive, so it is taking some discipline for us both.

Rip & Tan: With a natural surrounding landscape that truly speaks for itself, what was your philosophy for the exterior?

Kristina O'Neal: There is a local Tufa stone that was used by some of the barns built in the late 1800s in Knights Valley. We matched both the ag-structure form and this regional stone for our house exterior. A local artist later jumped in with us to lime wash the stone facing to homogenize the feel a bit more as well.

All of the olive trees that surround the house site range in age from 10-100 years old and they help visually set the whole structure in place amidst the roses, rosemary, jasmine, and lavender, too. As the landscape has finally moved past its awkward ‘tween years into its own fully grown and appointed adulthood, the entire house has matured as well.

Rip & Tan: We’d be remiss to not mention these incredible hangar windows. How did these come to be?

Kristina O'Neal: When we first imagined the house, the hangar doors were our must-have, but we hadn’t designed the interiors yet and our research was telling us they were harder to use in a non-industrial setting than we had anticipated.

It took quite a bit of negotiation with the supplier and our contractor to work them into the design as we went along. I am so glad we stuck to the plan! It’s glorious when we swing them open in the early spring and the breeze can rush through the belly of the whole house.

Rip & Tan: Let’s talk details—each art piece holds a real sense of intrigue. Can you tell us more about them? Where did you source these finds?

Kristina O'Neal: I have been making art here for the last few years, which has ranged from painting and drawing to constructing purely conceptual pieces from pre-existing found objects.

The long, rough muslin piece in the bathroom, for instance, was cut from the interior of an 18th-century Os de Mouton sofa which had a gorgeous back form. It was the original upholstery binding material tucked away underneath a velvet fabric that had decayed. And the diptych in the foyer was made from an embroidered Viennese runner from the 1860s. The finished pattern on the front is hidden from view and the mechanics of how the runner was sewn, the warp and weft of the base fabric, and the thread ties and tucks are on display from the underside.

As I find and re-construct new things, I can rotate the pieces for a fresh take. It’s become a way to play in the space versus feeling too fixed or rigid with the interior.

Rip & Tan: Though we imagine it’s hard to pick a favorite in a space like this, is there an area of the house you find yourself gravitating to most often?

Kristina O'Neal: Bathrooms aren’t typically labeled the “most seductive room” in the house, but I am smitten with ours. It’s peaceful and sunny with an open-shower, hammam feel. I sometimes read in there at night before bed and my husband lounges there in the morning before the day gets going. As we have settled in the house more and more I find that having decided to make the bathroom a sanctuary of sorts was one of our wisest choices.

Rip & Tan: Whether you’re refreshing your own interior or diving into a client’s project, where do you turn for renewed inspiration? 

Kristina O'Neal: If you sit long enough, even in controlled nature, it tells you all kinds of things about design and how it works. One hour sitting in our yard has given me art and design ideas from the color combo in a beetle’s back, to the looped structure of Spanish tree moss, or even the quirky rocking-chair movements of my Silkie chickens when they slurp down grass. It’s endless creativity on offer out there.

Rip & Tan: What does living well mean to you?

Kristina O'Neal: Spaces that manage to strike a balance between a sort of still peacefulness and an energetic aliveness have a real joy in them. Lives that embody both seem to feel well lived too!