Insider Art

Bade Stageberg Cox’s design for the Stones’ art cave includes two portals framed in Cor-Ten steel; the entrance portal is shown here. In the foreground is part of the landscape, which was designed by Tom Leader Studio.

The cave’s main space, with Mike Kelley’s “Shift” and “Antiqued” in the foreground, and Christopher Wool’s “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now” and Dan Flavin’s “Diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Robert Rosenblum)” on the walls.

Looking back into the cave from the exit portal toward Tony Conrad’s “Yellow Movie, 2/21-22/73,” Donald Judd’s “Untitled”and Alex Hay’s “Paper Airplane.”

Vito Acconci’s “Adjustable Wall Bra.”

The Stones’ 1887 farmhouse looks toward the cube-shaped skyspace by James Turrell.

Among contemporary art collectors — a world in which more is more these days — having your own private, architect-designed art gallery isn’t new. But hiding it in the side of a mountain is. 

Norman and Norah Stone — San Francisco collectors whose well-known holdings encompass work by artists from Donald Judd and Richard Serra to Robert Gober and Mike Kelley, as well as a growing collection of work by younger artists like Keith Tyson — found themselves with a lot of art and no place to show it all, especially the larger pieces, like Vito Acconci’s “Adjustable Wall Bra.” (Their house in San Francisco was already loaded with art.) Their 17-acre weekend place in the Napa Valley offered plenty of land, but the Stones didn’t want a big building that would disturb the harmony of what was already on the property, including a surprisingly modest 1887 farmhouse (filled with art, of course), a vineyard, a stand of redwood trees, a sculpture by Cady Noland and a striking pool and pavilion that was a collaboration between the artist James Turrell, the architect Jim Jennings and Tom Leader, who designed the landscape for the property. The solution to this problem came, fittingly enough, from the wine business. The Stones had seen a number of their friends’ and neighbors’ wine caves, which are all the rage right now, and when they looked at the hillside on their own land, Norah recalled, “we thought, Art cave.” Thus the couple got a building big enough to show their art, but one so cleverly concealed that you hardly know it’s there.

Consistent with their interest in lesser-known young artists, the Stones hired three young New York architects — Tim Bade, Jane Stageberg and Martin Cox, of Bade Stageberg Cox — on the recommendation of Thea Westreich, who has been the Stones’ art adviser for 17 years. (Westreich’s husband and business partner, Ethan Wagner, coined the name “Stonescape” to describe the entire property.) Westreich had known Cox in particular for some time and said that “he was extremely sensitive to art and to volume — and that’s what the cave is.” Hiring a star architect might have been easy, but the results might not have been so friendly to the art. The Stones, explains Westreich, “felt the collection would distinguish the project, not the other way around.”

As it turned out, the architecture of the cave is plenty distinguished — it’s a cool and elegantly proportioned backdrop for the art, but it’s powerful in its own right. Two understated portals, flanked by panels of Cor-Ten steel that will rust to near-invisibility in the landscape, lead, through smaller galleries, into (and out of) the 5,750-square-foot cave’s main space, which is 114 feet long, 27 feet wide and 23 feet high. A series of “pockets” were carved into the barrel vault of the ceiling to conceal fixtures that subtly wash the walls and artworks with an even light. (Renfro Design Group was the lighting consultant.)

As Bade points out, the cave — a primitive form of shelter — was created using sophisticated computer technology. After it was excavated, the cave was surveyed with laser equipment, and the survey was presented to the architects as a three-dimensional digital file, which was then used to fine-tune the design. 

The cave is not open to the public, but its exhibitions will change to reflect the Stones’ evolving collections. Although this was hardly a modest undertaking, the results are refreshingly unostentatious. As Westreich said of her clients, “They’re not your typical collectors, so why would they build a typical monument to themselves?”

December 9, 2007