Property of Mr. and Mrs. George Cade, Laguna Beach, California | Architects: Ladd & Kelsey

9/26/2025 10:58:00 AM

Seaward looking houses in spectacular settings abound on the coast of southern California- even so, the house that Mr. and Mrs. George Gade built on a cliff in Emerald Bay is exceptional. Perched 75 feet above the Pacific, it surveys an expanse of boat-dotted sea that stretches out to Catalina, 25 miles away, and up and down miles of rocky, undulating coastline. The waters thereabouts offer some of the world's best fishing, sailing and swimming, to the perpetual satisfaction of the Gades' 15-year-old son, George.

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The luck it would take to acquire a site like this might seem almost too much when you consider Emerald Bay itself-a community, old by California standards, with the charm of a transplanted Capri. But in this case, luck was abetted by vision and determination, for it was only after intensive study that architects Thornton Ladd and John Kelsey discovered a way to bring out the full promise of the rocky, sloping triangle of land. Using concrete piles sunk deep into the rock as a foundation, they built the house on the brow of the cliff the only portion of the site wide enough to accommodate it. Because of the slope of the land, the house is one story high at the front, or landward side, two at the back, or cliffside an arrangement that, incidentally, works as a natural zoning system for parents and son.