PBS’ ‘Craft in America’ show highlights Inverness resident, architect and environmentalist

When the producers of “Craft in America,” a Peabody Award-winning documentary series that’s aired on PBS since 2007, wanted to take a look at craft artists and handmade homes in America, they made their way to the Inverness home of Sim Van der Ryn.

“We first turned to the brilliance of Wharton Esherick and then decided to look into handmade homes on the West Coast to see how they might be different from Esherick’s aesthetic,” says Jacoba Atlas, the segment’s senior advisor.

Van der Ryn intrigued them.

“(He’s) one of California’s most important architects, an environmentalist and someone dedicated to working collaboratively with the students he taught at UC Berkeley,” she says. “He was a leader in the ‘back to the garden’ movement and decided to marry his skills as an architect with his commitment to living in harmony with nature.”

They thought that his work on the West Coast would compliment Esherick’s East Coast aesthetic, she adds. “We saw the two great craftsmen and architects in conversation with each other thought their inclusion.”

The production team met Van der Ryn at his home and interviewed his son, Micah, who grew up there, and also spoke with Van der Ryn’s colleague, Jim Campe, and UC Berkeley professor of architecture Greg Castillo.

The segment was shot over two days in March and will air on KQED at 11 p.m. Dec. 21.

Atlas says that the producers were “intrigued that some of the protests in Berkeley plunged him into memories of fleeing Europe as the Nazis advanced,” she says. “He wanted a quieter life. He wanted a refuge and he decided to create what he sought himself. A fascinating man to include in our hour about home.”

The segment on Van Der Ryn deals not only with his artisan handcrafted work, but the way he worked with his students and his commitment to the environment.

“In that respect, he seemed very immediate to us and his philosophy of living in consort with the environment had a strong message for today,” Atlas says.

As requisite for artists who are profiled in the show, Van Der Ryn’s life is profiled so viewers develop a sense of the “whole man,” she adds.

They’ll learn about his work as a UC Berkeley architecture professor for 40 years, his founding of the Outlaw Builders, a group in the 1960s and 1970s which, according to the show’s press release, “pursued good design, with disregard for building codes, rules and regulations” as exemplified in his Inverness home, and his stint as state architect for Gov. Jerry Brown.

“Van Der Ryn’s work is well known to academicians and architects, but probably not to a wider audience,” she says. “His insistence on using his own skills and those of his friends to build sustainable housing is as important today as it was decades ago.”

Atlas hopes that viewers “will recognize that the current emphasis on living in harmony with the environment has its roots in earlier generations and what was accomplished by pioneers like Van Der Ryan can be something of a blueprint for the future.”

Van der Ryn’s “Eco-Refuge,” a 4,000 square-foot, three-story home with four bedrooms and four bathrooms and set on five wooded acres in Inverness is available to rent for corporate or group retreats, or personal vacations.

To view photos of the home or book a reservation, go to simvanderryn.com.

Show off

If you have a beautiful or interesting Marin garden or a newly designed Marin home, I’d love to know about it.

Please send an email describing either one (or both), what you love most about it, and a photograph or two. I will post the best ones in upcoming columns. Your name will be published and you must be over 18 years old and a Marin resident.

Don’t-miss event

• Looking for vintage gifts, home décor or curiosities? Shop the French Market Marin’s outdoor market of more than 140 vendors during its “Big Christmas Show” from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 18 at the Armory parking lot at the Marin Civic Center at Civic Center Drive in San Rafael. Free admission and parking. Questions? Go to thefrenchmarketmarin.com.

PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com.