JOHN SILER'S TOUCH
With bright colors and quirky details, this
designer's Streng is an intriguing 'idea house'

From the pages of the Eichler Network newsletter
By David Weinstein

Streng brothers Jim and Bill never promised their homebuyers more than they could deliver. Unlike some competitors, Streng Bros. Homes, which marketed 3,000 Eichler-like modern houses in the greater Sacramento and Davis areas over a 30-year period beginning in 1959, never furnished their model homes with frills not provided in standard models.

"They wanted buyers to see what they would really be getting," says interior designer Jon Siler, who designed many of the Strengs' model interiors. But the Strengs made one exception. In 1966, Siler opened his own home to the public in the 67-home subdivision at Shelfield Oaks in Carmichael, even though his home was far from a standard Streng.

Siler had worked with Jim Streng, who ran the firm's Sacramento operation, and Streng architect Carter Sparks to create a customized home based on the standard plan at Shelfield Oaks, with a larger living area, more privacy for the kitchen and dining room, a different arrangement of bedrooms, and additional clerestory windows. The home also included such unique touches as rosewood flooring in the entry and dining room, and interior siding of quarter-sawn redwood.

Although it wasn't billed as such, the Siler home was less a model home than an idea house. And the ideas it provided are still intriguing today. Over the years Siler did interiors for dozens of Streng homeowners, and for Jim Streng's own home. "We pretty much had a relation with Jon similar to what we had with Carter," Jim Streng says.

The oak-dotted neighborhood of Shelfield Oaks is near the American River. It was also the first Streng neighborhood that had all Sparks' homes -- no 'traditional' models, Streng says. "I felt it was the best subdivision we ever did," he says.

Jon and Fran Siler's house was not the official model home. But Siler, who helped run Sacramento's one modern furnishings store, Wilson's, suggested opening it as a model in an effort to promote his wares, and his design services. "As long as it wasn't the official model house," Siler says, "Jim went along with it and thought it was interesting." Hundreds of people came through the house over two weekends. Fran recalls the experience as enjoyable, even though they were already living there. "We were young, you know," she says.

Jon and Fran Siler's home is warm and casual -- but provides for formal dining when desired. The furnishings are low-slung and unpretentious, but the home is filled with quirky touches. Colors range from muted to fire engine red. Siler, a modernist who studied with architect Raphael Soriano and designer Arnold Lustig at the California School of Art in Los Angeles, loves Sparks' architecture for its structural clarity and "honesty in design." The home was designed for use, not show. "That's why I like these houses," Jon says. "They're designed for really living in and using them. They don't have rooms you don't use."

Siler's tips for furnishing a modern home share an underlying message -- work with the architecture, not against it. That doesn't mean you need to buy modern furniture, he says. Antiques can work fine, for example, and on occasion he furnished Streng models with vernacular Mexican pieces. But avoid the modern, over-stuffed and over-sized pieces that have become so fashionable. "The modern look is low and smaller scaled than what seems to be very popular today," he says, "big over-sized pieces of furniture that in most cases are too big for the space."

The biggest mistakes have to do with windows. The homes are about light and opening the interior to the out of doors. "Big draperies do not go with this kind of house," he says. Front doors are another place owners go wrong, Siler says. Today, people go for grand, overblown entrances. "The Streng houses," he says, "they're very subtle."

The Silers' entrance has quiet drama. The deeply recessed entry has an over-scaled custom door, floor-to-roof. The top of the door is sloped, following the slope of the roof, a touch Sparks used for his custom homes. Leading to the entry is a walkway of random pattern steppingstones, which leads to a low wooden Japanese-style platform. Adding to the interest is an entryway garden filled with low camellia shrubbery and a tall protocarpus.

Modernism is far from puritanical, as can be seen throughout the Silers' house, which combines their interest in Japanese design with touches of bright color and dozens of paintings and sculptures, many of them whimsical, which they rotate frequently.

The changes in floor plan the Silers requested were designed to fit their lifestyle. Child-less by choice, the Silers wanted a large living area to entertain, with a dining room that could be walled off from the living room, and a kitchen that would be Fran's alone. "I don't like people in the kitchen when I'm cooking," she says.

The dining room can open fully onto the living room -- or hide behind shoji screens. For dinner parties Fran enjoys dramatic flourishes. "Fran is famously known," Jon says. "She opens the doors and says 'dinner is served.'" Adding additional interest to the dining room is a wall Jon devised from wood-en grillwork.

The living room gains warmth from the quarter-sawn redwood siding, also used on the exterior. The standard plan called for interior drywall. A grand piano -- Swedish modern, simple lines -- fills one corner. Beneath it stands a sculpted creature that's part turtle, part man.

The master bedroom -- in the original plan, the space accommodated two small bedrooms -- features a startling red stovepipe and red-checked tile flooring, a 15-foot long hand-painted cloth Indian battle scene, and a remarkable portrait of a young Siler lolling manfully in a butterfly chair and looking much like 1950s-era actor Tony Curtis.

Next door is one of Fran's favorite spots, a sunken tub that faces a private Japanese garden. She loves to soak in the tub and read. Fran is the gardener of the family, and she's turned the back yard into a series of special spaces, including an area for entertainment around the pool and a hidden bench up a slope that's ideal for evening cocktails.

Much as the Silers love their home, they are moving out. They've been spending more time at their condo in San Francisco, where they frequent the ballet and opera. Recently, Fran's been fretting about the garden more than enjoying it. But they're excited about the move, and working on colors for their new home, a duplex currently owned by their niece, Candy Dahl. Dahl, in turn, is buying their house.

Dahl spent many hours in the house, helping stain cabinets when she was a girl and imbibing her uncle's design sense. She plans few changes. "Any house I've ever lived in, Uncle Jon has been definitely the designer. So I'd have to get his approval for any changes," she says, "kind of tongue in cheek." "Anything my uncle touches in a design sense is fabulous," she adds. "It's a great home."

The Silers will miss their Streng, but there is a consolation, Fran says. "It's still going to stay in the family."

All photos by David Toerge

Discover more about Sacramento's Streng homes at the Eichler Network's Streng Homes Headquarters.

See other Streng Modern Stories