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	Photo: Lisa Sze

When Lee Franklin kept his 35-foot cutter at the Marina Village Harbor in the mid-1980s, ground had just been broken on the Marina Village town homes and condominiums. Each time he came back from an excursion on the Bay with his wife, Marijo, he could mark the developer's progress.

The first residences to go in were a small clutch of homes on Invincible Court. Following the inlet's curve with his eye, he could easily picture the line of tidy little homes and flats that would eventually run the length of the shoreline. It seemed to him a nice place to retire. In early spring 1986, Franklin toured the development as a prospective buyer. The most appealing sites were on the water, separated from the harbor by a wide greenbelt and sparkling lagoon. After carefully studying the angles of the sun, he chose a site right along the center -- a home built there would enjoy morning light on a deck just off the breakfast nook.

Plans for the Franklins' lot called for two flats stacked one on top of the other. The top unit was a three-bedroom, two-bath flat; the lower was a two-bedroom, two-bath unit. They bought both. At first Franklin's mother lived in the lower unit while they rented out the top. Then in 1993, when the elderly Mrs. Franklin could no longer live without assistance, Franklin persuaded his wife to abandon their large Tudor home in Piedmont and move to Marina Village. Initially, they lived next door, in a home they bought in 1993. Then, two years later, they embarked on a remodeling project to transform the two units into a grand 2,500-square-foot, five-bedroom, four-bath home with a year-round flowering garden and their boat docked 100 yards from the living room.

It was an ambitious project, constrained by the local homeowners association's restriction on moving load-bearing walls. Structurally, the biggest challenge was connecting the two floors. They settled on an elegant spiral staircase made of cherry and oak. On the day that it arrived (after being custom built in Oregon), there were problems getting it into the house. "It was something to see," says Franklin. "Workers had to spiral it in through the front door." The size of the opening for the staircase also demanded creativity. To leave as much floor space as possible and to complement the shape of the staircase, a round hole was cut in the ceiling, leaving a mere inch of clearance for the banister.

Beyond pulling out a closet and laundry room to open up the space and accommodate the staircase, the Franklins did little to change the layout on the ground floor. Instead they spent their energy dropping the entry ceiling and installing new finishings throughout the home. New cabinets and granite countertops went in the kitchen, and the fireplace surround had a total makeover. They also installed solid core interior doors with new hardware throughout the home.

Upstairs the Franklin's modifications to the builder's design were more extreme. To someone familiar with Marina Village floor plans, the effect can be disconcerting. There's a bed where the dining room table should be, and the kitchen has been whittled down to a breakfast bar just big enough for a sink, microwave and coffee pot. Keeping some semblance of a kitchen upstairs was a concession to the necessity of living with the senior Mrs. Franklin, who lived with them in the house until she passed away in 2000. "By having the kitchen upstairs we were able to enjoy a snack or morning cup of coffee without disturbing her," says Franklin.

The Franklins also made significant modifications to a fireplace and enclosed a chimney flue that jutted out into the living room. By building new doors and walls on both sides, they shut the room off from the entry, thus creating a glorious private master suite with room for a sofa, armchairs and custom entertainment center. And, the Franklins took advantage of the upper level's vaulted ceilings and peaked roof by building out a small loft accessible through a drop-down door with a ladder in the hallway.

Since the living room upstairs had become a bedroom, they had three bedrooms left to work with. The former master was the nicest, with sparkling views and a deck overlooking the lagoon. This became their joint home-office and headquarters for their business, the California Leadership Center (both do corporate training). The remaining bedrooms, overlooking the street, serve as a small home gym and private training room. The separate entrance to the home's top floor is still actively used by clients and others who visit for professional reasons.

Today, the Franklins enjoy six weeks of travel each year and have visited some of the world's most beautiful and exotic locales. Each time they return, however, they are nearly startled by the beauty they have created at home. "We've stayed in some fabulous places," says Marijo Franklin. "But each time we come home, we turn to each other and say, 'None of them were as nice as this one is.' "