It turned out this 1916 Edwardian building on Taylor St had an entire cottage built on top of it sometime in the 1930s.

The San Francisco penthouse was the epitome of San Francisco noir. I had moved into a little apartment below it when Paul and I separated after selling the condo in 2009 and had no idea that this penthouse was up on my building's roof until I asked the landlord about the building's one parking spot at the beginning of 2011.

It turned out this 1916 Edwardian building on Taylor St had an entire cottage built on top of it sometime in the 1930s that was practically like a house, just on top of a building, with a deck in front and a patio in back, that the rooms all opened onto. I moved up there and turned the deck and patio into a planter garden with fake grass that made it practically a full garden.

This penthouse was reached by an extra flight of stairs beyond the top landing of the 1916 caged elevator of the main building and felt like a little secret place. That rooftop had been where they had shot the opening scene of Hitchcock's Vertigo.

The pattern of that house, a ring of rooms enclosing an inner garden courtyard with a view garden in front, is one that is echoed in our current house in Camarillo and echoes the house I renovated for my mother in 1990.

One of the things I will do for clients is to find out what house patterns in their past made them feel most secure and happy to help them select and develop those patterns in their present.