Like It's Always Been There
California wine cellar inspired by a Parisian restaurant

By Dan Gustafson
Photos by Robert Martinez

When Tim Ramos retired as a technology executive six years ago, he and his wife decided to make their ranch-style home in Alamo, California, more comfortable by “adding a few feet onto our son’s room.” Their subsequent domino effect remodel was due to “our architect’s ability to get us excited,” explains Catherine, who admits she erred mightily by leaving him alone with Tim in a meeting. “When I returned, we had a second story and a wine cellar. I never left again.”

The cellar tacked on three more months to a year-long exile from their house, which was deconstructed to framing and sub-floor before expanding in almost every direction. “The main cellar measures 12 by 20 feet,” Tim points out, “but we dug 12 feet outside of the walls and filled with rock for drainage.” Built of cement block and sealed with polyurethane, the cellar boasts both inside and outside sump pumps.

Ramos gained his love of Cabernet Sauvignon through business travel. A cellar visit at La Tour d’Argent restaurant in Paris also impressed him. “Maybe a half million bottles and nothing fancy, just functional,” he recalls. “I wanted a rustic cellar that looked like it had always been here, like the house was built around it.”

So Ramos held a distressing party, giving his three children ownership by letting them beat up new lumber with chains and hammers. Hand-worked iron rails, Honduran mahogany doors, worn treads on stained redwood stairs, iron vents, chandeliers and sconces, amber lighting, exposed ceiling beams, flooring mottled with shoe polish – all contribute to a weathered look.

Carved walls of concrete and crushed limestone also lend an antique air. Under 4 by 18-inch wood beam counters, cross-hatched bins form triangular bays tilted to hold bottles securely. Along the north wall, a row of racks angles to display magnums while wooden drawers offer sliding case lots.

A late 18th-century Irish hutch filled with wine glasses anchors one end of the cellar, and an early 19th-century French fruitwood plank table runs down the center. Tim speaks of “appeasements,” noting that Conner Cellars carved into one niche refers to Catherine’s maiden name, and a crest on the wall bears her first name. He claims he is still paying for the meeting she missed.

Under the stairs, a niche-filled anteroom holds Bordeaux cases from their marriage year (1985) and the birth years of Lesley, Morgan and Jack. The 2,000-bottle cellar exhibits considerable diversity, but Cab is king. Catherine favors Opus One and vintage port, and Tim’s tastes run to Insignia (“our house wine”), Araujo, Caymus, Dunn, Heitz, and Pride, as well as French first-growths Haut-Brion, Lafite-Rothschild and Latour. “I really like Bordeaux,” he says. “But there are so many good California Cabs.”

Cellar Design: Tom Warner, Thomas E. Warner Co., Walnut Creek, California.
Architect: Phil Volkman, Barry and Volkman Architects, Danville, California.