House
by CLS Sandoval
In the mid-1970s, when Rodney designed and built 12721 Stone Canyon Road, he had installed sunken fire pit in the family room. This wouldn’t change until the Swift family bought it in the early 1980s and didn’t want their baby daughter’s delicate skin to be singed on the rock facade of the benches near the flame. For Rodney, the sunken fireplace was the perfect place to entice those women he met on his playful nights out to return with him, up the private drive lined with eucalyptus, past the bamboo maze, to the top of the Green Valley hill in the heart of Poway: San Diego’s “City in the Country”, with vistas of open Rancho, Bernardo Hills that hadn’t yet been developed into Pomerado hospital, Einstein, Bagels, the pediatric dentist, Bernardo Heights, Middle School, and the local Latter-Day Saint Church. For a magical moment in the 70s, Rodney could be his Playboy self: warmed near his latest flame, as well as the open flame in the pit of the 4000 square foot custom four split level.
