A process of elimination informs the design universe of Jack
Hillmer, and a few, very distinctive, basic ideas animate all his work. The Ludekens House displays them all, and it
is possibly the superlative achievement of his architectural
vision. In his designs, there is no differentiation between
inside and outside, no studs were used, radiant heating
warms all houses (a technique he first experienced in the
Sidney Bazett House by Frank Lloyd Wright); materials
were chosen by how well they would weather; no tree
limbs could be trimmed unless he was present, and nothing
but glass could touch the ceilings.
Fred Ludekens, a Belvedere native, was a renowned illustrator, designer, and teacher whose work appeared in publications such as Fortune and the Saturday Evening Post. Based in New York, he wintered in San Francisco, taking a suite at the Fairmont Hotel for himself and his wife and daughter. He rented a studio at 425 Bush Street, where Hillmer and Callister had their office, and there he saw the two young designers working on the Hall House.
Hillmer explained the commission in a 2002 interview; "One day Mrs. Ludekens came up and said, 'We bought a lot on Belvedere, and we want Frank Lloyd Wright or you to do the house. I hope it will be you.' . . . I filled the house with iron pipes, steel beams, and cellular steel floors, which are used in multistory buildings, in panels two feet wide."
Hillmer attempted to completely integrate the Ludekens House with its hilly site. Only one tree was taken out. The lines of the architectural elements—like the slope of the diamond-like section of its canopies—are drawn out from the branches of the cypress trees, and the roof rises in a spiral. Complete command of his design vocabulary is shown in Hillmer's utmost care for materials and their mutual relationships. The twelve-foot-long monolithic stone used for the fireplace was a big outcropping from the Sierra carved out per Hillmer's marks on the boulder. Nothing touches the stone except glass. A wide palette of wood, always left rough, gives character to different areas: redwood for the walls and the twelve-foot doors, kelobra from Brazil for the folding doors between the studio and the living room; African ebony for the forty-foot sliding doors that divide the kitchen and bath. There is no baseboard and no trim around doors. The color of the house's concrete floor comes from the darkest stone in the ocean. The gravel atop the roof was collected in a bucket by Hillmer himself from the beach below the home.
The Ludekens did not want actual beds in the house. So Hillmer designed beds that slid under cabinets. Nor did they want a formal dining room. So Hillmer designed a wheeled dining table that could be moved anywhere in the house. It took fourteen months to design the house. Four or five draftsmen did the working drawings, and ten workmen built the home, all for a six-thousand-dollar fee.
Hillmer commented in 2003 that few people saw the house. "Douglas Haskell, who was the editor of Architectural Forum, really liked my work. . . . I took Haskell and his wife to see the Ludekens House. . . . I had called Ludekens and I said I wanted to show it to Haskell. . . . He said, 'We are not going to be at home, so you can you show him the outside, but you cannot come inside.' But . . . I took Mrs. Haskell to the deck, and she told me the most incredible thing: 'This is not a good house.' I waited. . . . 'This is a great house!' Very few people saw the house. [The Ludekens] didn't entertain very much."
The Ludekens House passed through several owners who, according to Hillmer, made several changes to it. Yet the structure still stands, and its jutting canopy is still visible from the waters of the Bay.