A Midcentury Modern Micro Wedding at Case Study House #26

A Midcentury Modern Ceremony on the Balcony

The ceremony happened out on the 800-square-foot deck, with their close family gathered in around them and the Marin hills falling away behind. An officiant opened with a short introduction, and then Ceazon and Scott read the vows they had each written, exchanged rings, and were married. The ceremony was exactly what they had wanted: short, personal, and theirs.

A champagne toast closed it out right there on the balcony. The deck is cantilevered over the hillside above China Camp State Park, it hangs over the Marin landscape rather than sitting on it, which gives the ceremony a particular quality of openness. The hills and the bay are spread below while the steel-frame bays of the house frame everything from behind. Designed by Beverley Thorne in 1962, the house is the only Case Study house built in the Bay Area.

“Vows on the balcony, family close in, the Marin hillside dropping away behind them, champagne to finish.”

Portraits Inside a Landmark

Hors d'oeuvres went out to the guests while Ceazon and Scott slipped off for portraits, then came back together for family photos. Case Study House #26 is an architectural landmark wedding setting unlike any other in California, the only Case Study house built in the Bay Area, designed by Beverley Thorne in 1962 as eight steel-framed bays fully walled in glass, cantilevered out over the hillside above China Camp State Park. Every surface, inside and out, was part of the architecture.

The 800-square-foot deck hangs over the Marin hillside, and from it you can see China Camp State Park spreading out below toward the bay. Inside, the double-height ceilings and all-glass exterior walls mean there is no bad angle, the Marin hills frame every shot through the glass, and the light that comes in from the west in the afternoon does the rest of the work for you. The house is twenty minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge, and on a clear August afternoon the bay is visible from the deck, a portrait setting that cannot be rented anywhere else in California.

Dinner and Dancing at the Architectural Landmark Wedding

The open-plan great room was reset for dinner, Chef Jessica Brunelli handling the food. The kitchen at Case Study House #26 is fully equipped for a private chef dinner, the house was designed for living in, and the kitchen has been modernized while the rest of the architecture has stayed intact. For dessert there was a red velvet cake from Criminal Baking. Then the night became an after-party, the family dancing together inside the glass walls with the hills going dark outside.

When the room is lit up and the hills past the glass have gone black, Case Study House #26 becomes something else entirely. A lantern on the Marin hillside, the whole family still inside it, the dancing going until the evening wound down.