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Photo: Lisa Sze |
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And then there’s The View, the view that caused the Manns to buy the lot on which they built their house in the first place.“We can see San Francisco, part of the Peninsula, the Golden Gate Bridge and on to Marin,” Joan Mann says.“It’s a nice panoramic view,” and that view is what influenced the architecture of the house. “Almost the only thing we told our architect, John Seals from Oakland, was that we wanted to take advantage of the view.” Seals obviously listened, because nearly every room in the house has a breathtaking view. The Manns moved into their brand-new house in 1974, and even though the three children they raised there are grown and gone, the couple plans never to leave.All their children live in the Bay Area, and bring along some or all of the eight grandchildren when they visit, so Joan and Roger Mann feel they need the room.
Besides, they still love the neighborhood. Roger Mann describes Hillcrest Estates, their neighborhood near Skyline High School, as “very peaceful. It’s like the country here.There are no sidewalks, and few streetlights. Lots are a minimum of one acre. We have a quiet country atmosphere in the middle of the city. This is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Oakland.”
All the Manns’ neighbors share the neighborhood’s quiet, sunny ambience, and many of them share the view. What sets the Manns’ house apart is their art.The Manns are committed collectors with broad, eclectic taste and a leaning toward what Joan Mann calls “American Contemporary art.We like ceramics, glass,wood and paintings.” Their collection is so extensive that it can be found in every room in the house as well as in the room they renovated to become a two-story art gallery. The Manns’ collection includes works by Deborah Butterfield, Fletcher Benton, Paul Wonner, Manuel Neri, Oakland painter Hung Liu, Bruce Beasley, Ross Bleckner, Sean Scully, Dale Chihuly, Jim Dine and Karol Appel.
“We keep changing things around, and when we do, it feels like the art is new again,” says Joan Mann. The couple’s first art purchase was a Chagall print.“Tried and true,” she says,“but then we went by the wayside.Over the years, we started collecting things we really like and ran out of wall space.“
Besides the gallery, they have added a closet/master bath and a sitting room.They’ve also converted space no longer needed by their children into guest quarters and a media room.And they remodeled the kitchen.
All in all, Joan Mann believes that the changes they have incorporated into the house made it “more sophisticated. In the 1970s,” she remembers, “this was a more casual home. Most of the detail work was redwood. It was a ’70s home with a shag rug for a growing family.” Something that remains from the original house is what Joan Mann calls “easy care floors”—beautiful Saltillo tiles in most of the public rooms. But now, throughout the house, the overwhelming ambience has gone from casual to a look of seductive sleekness, and almost subliminal luxury.
At the heart of the Manns’ Oakland home is the kitchen/family room,“what would be called a great room in the East,” says Joan Mann. “We renovated the kitchen 15 years ago, replacing orange tile and oak cabinets with beech cabinets and granite countertops.” She calls her kitchen “very user-friendly.” A curved sectional sofa separates the kitchen from the rest of the space, which holds a matching chair and a fireplace.Art displayed in this area includes wood pieces, a Ross Bleckner painting and ceramics by Anne Goldman next to the fireplace. The large piece made from what Joan Mann calls “symbolic wooden pieces” over the sofa is by John Buck, Deborah Butterfield’s husband (“They live in Montana and are environmentally conscious”).
And what happens when the Manns don’t love a prospective addition to their collection equally? “Sometimes he’ll indulge me, sometimes I’ll indulge him,” says Joan Mann. When that happens, it appears that everyone wins.
