Greenhouse hides behind wing wall

Sunset, May, 1992 by Peter O. Whiteley

PRESTIDIGITATORS would be impressed with the disappearing act pulled off at this home in Woodside, California. Robert Peterson Architects made a whole greenhouse disappear, but, as with all feats of illusion, a trick was involved.

The greenhouse never vanished, of course. It merely hides behind a tall wing wall at one end of a pavilion that extends from the ranch house. The pavilion serves as a partially protected potting area, storage shed, and lathhouse.

Glass-paneled doors sliding on barn-door hardware open to the heated greenhouse, where the owners raise orchids and other frost-tender plants. The metal-framed greenhouse rest on its own concrete pad and butts against the outside of the wing wall.

Lapped siding covers the pavilion's interior and exterior walls. A wide, shed-shaped opening in the wall provides wheelbarrow access to the side yard.

To keep the pavilion as open as possible, the architects supported the roof with a post-and-beam framework made of 10-inch-diameter steel pipe. A solitary center post supports a 32-foot-long ridge pipe. The west-facing side of the pavilion opens to the rear garden and afternoon sun; a lattice section of roof is made up of 2-by-12 rafters supporting overlapping 2-by-4s and 2-by-2s.