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	Photo: Deborah Sherman

Upper Rockridge Homecoming

Restoring a Family Treasure

    In 1975, Charles and Filomena Paoli decided they needed a bigger house to accommodate their three grade-school-age daughters. Since they loved their Rockridge neighborhood, it was no surprise they relocated a stone’s throw away to Upper Rockridge, where they found a 3,200-square-foot Mediterranean house, built in 1929, on a doublewide lot.
    Dina, the eldest daughter, was elated by the change, even at her young age. “I never missed anything about the old house,” explains an older and wiser Dina—now Dina Shields—today. “From the day we moved in, I felt connected to this house; protected by it, for whatever reason. There’s a good presence here.”
    While her sisters also enjoyed their new home, Dina Shields felt the most connected to it by far; and it’s a connection that’s more than just emotional. “It was here,” she says, standing in the living room where she once played as a child, “where I met my husband, Ryan, during a cocktail party my sister threw in 1990.”
    During the couple’s courtship, Ryan Shields, a San Francisco native and, later, a San Rafael resident, spent a lot of time in the Paoli home and quickly shared in Dina Shields’ love for the house and its friendly neighborhood. After they married, the couple wanted nothing more than to be part of the neighborhood’s tight-knit camaraderie, so they bought the house two doors down. While living so close to her parents was idyllic, given their close relationship, Dina Shields found the proximity vexing when the Oakland Hills fire broke out in 1991.
    As the fire tore through their neighborhood, both the Shields and Paoli households were forced to flee their respective homes. “The news showed that the fire had ripped through our street. I was devastated to lose my new home, but even more, I was overwhelmed at what I was sure was the loss of my parents’ house,” she recounts with a heavy sigh.
    When they returned to survey the damage, they were dumbfounded to find both their houses unscathed by the blaze, which came within four houses of destroying theirs. The couple will never know whether luck or that “good presence” Dina Shields associates with her childhood home spared her parents’ structure. The experience fed Dina Shields’ fondness for her childhood home.
    As the years went by, the Shieldses and their two children began to outgrow their house. In 2000, Filomena Paoli—who by then was living in her grand-scale house alone, after she and Charles divorced—gave her eldest daughter a great gift: her Mediterranean house. “She always knew how much I wanted to come back home,” Dina Shields says with a smile.
    When Filomena Paoli moved to a more modest-sized home nearby, the Shieldses embarked on a true labor of love to restore the five-bedroom, four-bath house back to its former magnificence. The costly undertaking included repairing the foundation, replacing the Spanish-tile roof, ripping out dated wallpaper and carpeting and replacing windows. Despite the overhaul, the couple paid special attention to keeping the historic features that give the house its unique character, such as the original crown molding, hardwood flooring, arched entryway and staircase. “I wanted to be respectful of how the house was built and keep that same feeling I had when I grew up here,” Dina Shields explains.
    To accomplish this, she enlisted the aid of interior designer Kelly Tivey of Ethan Allen, who matched Dina Shields’ Italian heritage with her love of the English-countryside style to create an elegant entertainment space and realistic atmosphere for family living. In doing so, the original black-and-white Italian-marble fireplaces in the living and dining rooms became prominent focal points, thanks to the surrounding richly hued furnishings, rugs and window treatments. The wingback chairs in the living room, which date back to Dina Shields’ childhood, were reupholstered in a fresh floral pattern that complements the bright-yellow walls as well as the deep-green sofas that were chosen as much for their sophisticated style as their durability. In the dining room, the new but classic-style dining table and buffet mesh seamlessly with the family’s heirlooms and objets d’art. “By mixing existing elements with carefully selected new pieces, we created an updated interpretation of approachable elegance,” explains Tivey.
    While it was essential to respect the house’s early style, the one thing that wasn’t negotiable was keeping the old kitchen. “It was outdated and inefficient for how we live our lives,” Dina Shields says. So the kitchen was gutted and restructured to create a more sensible flow by incorporating larger cabinets, granite countertops, a spacious breakfast bar and modern, energy-efficient appliances.
    As far as what the future holds for this house, Dina Shields is not sure whether her children will take an interest in keeping it. “It would break my heart to see this place leave the family. But then again,” she says with a laugh, “I’m not planning on going anywhere for a good long time.”