The Flintstone House is a free-form, single-family residence in
Hillsborough, California
Hillsborough is an incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is located south of San Francisco on the San Francisco Peninsula, bordered by Burlingame to the north, San Mateo to the east, Highlands- ...
,
overlooking and easily seen from the
Doran Memorial Bridge
The Doran Memorial Bridge is the twin pair of steel girder bridges that carry eight lanes of road traffic on Interstate 280 over San Mateo Creek near Hillsborough, California in San Mateo County.
History
The Doran Memorial Bridge was origin ...
carrying
Interstate 280 over
San Mateo Creek.
History
Design
The house was designed by architect
William Nicholson and built in 1976 as one of several experimental domed buildings using new materials. The idea takes its inspiration from the airframe homes designed by architect
Wallace Neff
Edwin Wallace Neff (January 28, 1895 – June 8, 1982) was an architect based in Southern California and was largely responsible for developing the region's distinct architectural style referred to as "California" style. Neff was a student of ...
.
Built on a concrete slab foundation, the residence was constructed by spraying
shotcrete
Shotcrete, gunite (), or sprayed concrete is concrete or mortar conveyed through a hose and pneumatically projected at high velocity onto a surface, as a construction technique, first used in 1907 invented by Carl Akeley. It is typically ...
onto steel
rebar and wire mesh frames over inflated aeronautical balloons.
It was built by a company named Fame Homes and designed to resist
wildfires
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...
and
earthquakes. The home's first owners were Tyrone and Norma Thompson and Mrs. Thompson planned to give lectures and tours of the home once it was completed.
It has approximately of living space including three bedrooms, one accessed via a spiral staircase inspired by an ice cream cone that at the top is the same diameter as the room, and two bathrooms, and has a two-car garage.
[ All the interior surfaces are rounded, and the master bathroom has a floor of rocks instead of tiles.][
Originally off-white in color, the house was repainted deep orange in 2000,][ and one of the domes was later painted purple.]
Nicknames
The house is known popularly as the "Flintstone House", from ''The Flintstones
''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the activities of the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighb ...
'', a Hanna-Barbera Productions animated cartoon series of the early 1960s about a Stone Age family. It is also known as the Dome House, the Gumby House, the Worm Casting House, the Bubble House,[ and "The Barbapapa House", from ]Barbapapa
''Barbapapa'' is a 1970 children's picture book by the French-American couple Annette Tison and Talus Taylor, who lived in Paris, France. Barbapapa is both the title character and the name of his "species". The book was the first of a series of ...
, a character and series of books created by Annette Tison
Annette Tison, (born in 1942 in Hossegor, France) is a French architect and writer, mainly known for being co-creator of the '' Barbapapa'' series with her American husband, Talus Taylor
Talus Taylor (1933 – 19 February 2015) was a writer of ...
and Talus Taylor
Talus Taylor (1933 – 19 February 2015) was a writer of children's literature, best known for being the co-creator with his wife Annette Tison of the ''Barbapapa'' series.
Taylor was born in 1933 in San Francisco. He was a biology teacher and th ...
in the 1970s.
Disrepair, restoration and remodeling
By the mid-1980s the house had fallen into disrepair, as water runoff from higher on the mountainside damaged the foundation, causing the walls to crack. After failed attempts at sealing the cracks, it was extensively restored in 1987.
San Francisco Bay Area architect Eugene Tsui
Eugene Tssui ( born Eugene Tsui, September 14, 1954)
Eugene Tsui, ''Evolutionary Architecture: Nature as a Basis for Design'' (John Wiley & Sons, 1999), . is an American architect noted for his use of ecological principles and "biologic" desig ...
undertook to remodel the house during the first decade of the 2000s. The results of Tsui's remodel appear as the "Edises Kitchen" project, pictured on Tsui's website. Tsui's original concept for the remodel, including a proposed complementary second residence on the property, is detailed in depth on his earlier site.
In September 2015, the home went up for sale with a price tag of $4.2 million. With no luck finding a buyer, the home came back on the market in early 2017 at the reduced price of $3.2 million. In June 2017, it finally sold for $2.8 million.
In late 2017, the new owners installed large oxidized steel sculptures of dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
s, a woolly mammoth
The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus s ...
, a giraffe, and Fred Flintstone
Fred Flintstone is the main character of the animated sitcom '' The Flintstones'', which aired during prime-time on ABC during the original series' run from 1960 to 1966. Fred is the husband of Wilma Flintstone and father of Pebbles Flintsto ...
in the yard.
Complaint
The house was unpopular with some neighbors, and inspired the formation of a local architectural review board. In March 2019, the town of Hillsborough filed a complaint against the current owner of the house, Florence Fang. The complaint alleged that the current owner's modifications are a "public nuisance" and that she did not receive the proper permits for her modifications. In March 2019, Fang retained the law offices of former San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto
Joseph Lawrence Alioto (February 12, 1916 – January 29, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 36th mayor of San Francisco, California, from 1968 to 1976.
Biography
Alioto was born in San Francisco in 1916. His father, Giuseppe ...
and Angela Alioto
Angela Mia Alioto Veronese (born October 20, 1949) is an American attorney, politician, member of the Secular Franciscan Order, and founder of the Knights of Saint Francis at the Porziuncola Nuova. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the d ...
to respond to the Hillsborough complaint. The lawsuit was settled in June 2021 allowing the modifications to stay, with Ms. Fang receiving $125,000 from the city.
Notes
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Flintstone House
Houses in San Mateo County, California
Houses completed in 1976