Encinitas
Encinitas, CA
Encinitas, CA
Unfold 01
The catalyst to our origin story. Our home base.
Location
Encinitas, CA
ORIGINAL BUILD
1985
UNFOLDED
2023 - 2026
Launched
2026
A site for reinterpretation and stewardship.
The home was originally built by owners Pat McGriff, its builder and woodworker, and Shanna Kellogg, designer, slowly and deliberately over the course of nearly a decade in the 1970s. Starting from the woodshop (now reimagined as the “Artist Flat” for our Residency) on the property, the home was constructed and assembled using local materials and regional craftspeople. The sweeping curved roof, engineered by Kendrick Bangs Kellogg, unifies the property into a single entity. Decades later, the house yearned for the same devotion and craft that first brought it to life, along with a careful response to Encinitas’ changing climate.
Land Acknowledgment: This project and home rest on the traditional village sites of the Kumeyaay/Kumiais tribes. Learn more about Native Land.
The original plans by Shanna Kellogg envisioned a tree growing within the second-floor bathroom’s skylights. Never realized, our Guild returned to the plan’s integrity, planting a “Song of India” tree at the location in 2025.
A co-creative process driven by, What if?
UNFOLD was lucky enough to track down the original builder and owner, Pat McGriff and include him as not only witness but as a guide to our plans in revisiting the project’s original intent. To unlock what the house was capable of becoming while applying our own reinterpretation, we invited a hand-picked Guild of over twenty regional artists and designers working in wood, glass, clay, and metal. Each of them, experts in working with natural materials, created pieces for the home informed by (and at times directly pulled from) its original craftsmanship and architecture.
Throughout UNFOLD’s process, history was a grounding point while we explored new ways to restore and create meaningful contemporary contributions. Our decisions were driven by circularity, honoring the original craftsmanship while expanding it, transforming the space through collective care and creative exchange.
In our restoration process, all deconstructed materials that were not used by the Guild were funneled to Habitat for Humanity for reuse.
I wanted our encinitas guild to work with pat, to ask and learn about his original processes. The pieces created reflect the outcome of this active dialogue. Everything is unique but related. It almost reads as if it is a poem, with each artist reading a line from another before them, then writing the next stanza. Together, we unfolded a rhythm.
The Artist Residency at UNFOLD Encinitas
The UNFOLD RESIDENCY offers participants across disciplines space, time, and resources for creative regeneration. At the Artist Residency at UNFOLD Encinitas, residents are hosted for a two-week to a one month stay in the transformed Artist Flat on the property, which once served as the original woodshop. The space is made home and a source of inspiration for its inhabitants with furniture pieces and artwork created by the artists and designers of the UNFOLD Guild.
The Encinitas Residency is a setting rooted in rest, dedicated pause for introspection, and creative rediscovery.
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