About Steve McKee

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22 12, 2010

‘48ers: Benicians rushed for gold before it was cool – PART 1

By |2010-12-22T19:29:16+00:00December 22nd, 2010|Benicia, Uncategorized|Comments Off on ‘48ers: Benicians rushed for gold before it was cool – PART 1

I recently had the chance to read a source for interesting stories about the history of Benicia and I’m quite certain that almost none of you have seen it. I plan on sharing the best stories from it with you here. This history is actually less a book and more a large “document” that was recently commissioned by the city especially for use by the Historic Preservation Review Commission in order to help provide historical background information that may aid with preservation decisions. I’m currently serving on that commission which is why I had access to the early drafts of [...]

26 11, 2010

A tale of two buildings

By |2010-11-26T19:23:38+00:00November 26th, 2010|Thinking like an architect, Uncategorized|Comments Off on A tale of two buildings

Melody and I had a nice dinner out the other day in downtown Napa in a brick warehouse that had been a “grain-and-feed” building many years ago but had been cleaned up and converted into a restaurant. It was an old funky building being reused for something it wasn’t originally designed for and of course that made the place even more quirky and therefore enjoyable. “Celadon” was the restaurant’s name. Half of the tables were outside in a big space with a four sided brick fireplace in the middle under a large sloping corrugated metal roof with big plants that [...]

28 10, 2010

A time when I could slay dragons

By |2010-10-28T19:35:20+00:00October 28th, 2010|My favorite columns, Uncategorized|Comments Off on A time when I could slay dragons

I recently helped deliver my daughter to her new life at UCLA. While there I made a point to visit “Bruin Walk” to flashback to the best two months of my life when I learned that I could take on the world and win. That’s what if felt like. In 1983 I was an architecture student and I ended up saving one of the best parts of that beautiful campus from some really klutzy landscape design right before the university was all set to build it. They even had a builder all lined up when I happened to see an [...]

7 10, 2010

Remodeling your Southampton home

By |2010-10-07T18:19:44+00:00October 7th, 2010|Remodeling a Southampton home, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Remodeling your Southampton home

I like remodeling Southampton houses. Almost all of them are well built with consistent construction details and an extra strong slab foundation system that has advantages when we do additions. Thousands of these houses were built over the span of two decades and they dependably used these same construction techniques throughout and that lets us later-day designers and remodelers know what we’re in for. Beyond that, the basic roof shapes make it simple to design attractive additions. It’s easy to make such additions blend into the general look of the neighborhood but still add some distinction [...]

25 08, 2010

Sweet Sistine

By |2010-08-25T19:36:36+00:00August 25th, 2010|My favorite columns, Travel Tales, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Sweet Sistine

The three hour tour of the Vatican Museum in Rome was a doozy with much to see, like marble statues and elaborate tapestries and even wall sized maps of Europe and the New World that were state-of-the-art for the 1600’s. Near the end of this tour we received a special reward when we got to stand before the large wall fresco of Raphael’s “School of Athens,” in which the great men of ancient Greece are seen gathering to share ideas. It was much more colorful and vibrant compared to the nearby works completed by Raphael’s assistants. We learned [...]

28 07, 2010

Why we travel: Finding the Rome within

By |2010-07-28T19:38:16+00:00July 28th, 2010|Travel Tales, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Why we travel: Finding the Rome within

With the sun starting to set over Rome, there came a slight breeze that cut the warmth of the day down enough that all four of us McKees could start to get comfortable. No longer dripping sweat, we could be our usual selves with wisecracks and antics all around. When a siren went by repeating its two notes over and over, Wesley joined in and then Melody started to harmonize and then we all did. Whenever we passed a statue, one of us stood in front in the same pose as the statue no matter how pompous (with photo taken [...]

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