Type Residence Address 45 Berryessa Way Completed 1976 Height 6.1 m Floor area 297.3 m² Renovated 1987 | Architectural style Free-form dome Country United States Structural system Shotcrete on steel Opened 1976 Town or city Hillsborough | |
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Similar Crystal Springs Reservoir, Casa do Penedo, Steam World Museum, Burlingame Railroad Station, Ojo del Sol | ||
The Flintstone House is a free-form, single-family residence in Hillsborough, California overlooking, and best seen from the Eugene A. Doran Memorial Bridge on Interstate 280. It was designed by architect William Nicholson and built in 1976 as an experiment in new building materials, in the form of a series of domes. It was constructed by spraying shotcrete onto steel rebar and wire mesh frames over inflated balloons. Originally off-white in color, it was repainted a deep orange in the early 2000s. The house contains three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
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Map of The Flintstone House, Hillsborough, CA 94010, USA
Known popularly as "The Flintstone House", it derives its name from The Flintstones, a Hanna-Barbera Productions animated cartoon series of the early 1960s about a Stone Age family.
The home is also known as "The Barbapapa House," deriving its name from "Barbapapa", a character and series of books created by "Annette Tison" and "Talus Taylor" in the 1970s.
Disrepair and restoration
By the mid-1980s the house had fallen into disrepair, as water runoff from higher on the mountainside damaged the foundation, causing the walls to crack. After several unsuccessful attempts, an extensive restoration commenced around 1987.
San Francisco Bay Area architect Eugene Tsui undertook to remodel the house during the first decade of the 2000s. The results of Tsui's remodel appear as the "Edises Kitchen" project, pictured on Tsui's Web site. Tsui's original concept for the remodel, including a then-proposed, complementary second residence on the property, is detailed in depth on his earlier site. (See external links, below.)