An Introduction to the people behind “hall of the above”

We are Daniel Castor, and Jen Jerde, the new(ish) tenants of 199 N. Petaluma Blvd.

When we had our very first in-person community meet-and-greet in the building, we wanted to introduce ourselves to Petaluma by way of our previous projects and various community involvements. We thought it could be helpful, in understanding where we want to go, to understand where we’re coming from, which is a world of historical buildings, parades, building things, and bringing community together.

Jen and Daniel

Daniel (Danny) is the owner of Castor Architecture, where he has been practicing single-family residential architecture for about 25 years in the Bay Area, with his office currently located in San Rafael. Jen founded her company, Elixir Design, 30+ years ago, and runs an office in San Francisco. With neither of us being from Petaluma, it was tricky to say that we should be the people to take on the responsibility of developing this building to its full potential, but hopefully you’ll think we’re worth it. 

historical buildings

Our love for old buildings goes way back to 1992 (and before), when Danny received a Fulbright to study in Europe—specifically, to study the Amsterdam Exchange, masterwork of the Dutch architect Dr. H. P. Berlage, built in 1903. Below are his pencil drawings, showing the outside and inside at the same time. He received funding from the Dutch Ministry of Culture for an additional year of work, and in 1996 the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut mounted an exhibition of his drawings and published the book Drawing Berlage’s Exchange. 

Danny’s next stop was in Rome, creating a spatial analysis of the Tempietto del Bramante, a masterpiece of High Renaissance Italian architecture. It has a hollow altar inside, connecting to the crypt below. These drawings are a collection of these different spaces, shown in different stages of solids and negatives.

Cloverae Block Table

We met in 1999, married, and had two daughters, Nell and Gwen. A client with grown kids offered us their Thomas the Tank Engine table, and in one of those “Resistance is Futile” moments of early parenthood, not only did we accept the table, we parked it in the middle of our living room. To our surprise, we discovered that we liked having something the kids could play with that could also function as a coffee table for grown-ups. Cue the Cloverae Block Table. We developed prototypes in a variety of woods before producing a limited edition of 10 tables in Walnut.

The Dream House

In 2008, we all got slapped by the Great Recession. In order to avoid going crazy, Danny decided to create a children’s book, called Dream House. Inspired by the stories of Chris Van Allsburg, we imagined what it would be like for two children to move into a strange, old house. As they re-arrange their boxes, bins and baskets, they can create a home of their own imagining – one with the kinds of amenities only a kid could dream up: a closet filled with costumes, a bunk bed opera house, a walk-in dishwasher, a flying sofa, and of course, a parade (because everybody loves a parade), which brings us to our next project...

Greenwood School parades

In 2008, we were also just getting involved in the local Waldorf-inspired school called Greenwood, and realized the school should have more of a presence in the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade.

Our first idea was these tall rainbow banners, with the middle school bluegrass band playing under a frame built from fallen redwood trees. And for the first time in a long time, Danny got to actually build some stuff—a revelation.

There was some pushback about the messaging after that first year—that it was a little too frivolous. So the next year we created a Silver Star, that we carried on its back like a fallen soldier, and every time somebody would spot a veteran in uniform, we would raise the star as a salute. It was electrifying, and a lesson that you can really have an emotional impact with the things you create. As an architect, especially when doing single family residential, the audience is very small. And we love helping people and improving their quality of life, but when you’re doing something that’s community-oriented, it really feels next-level.

This next one is a is a 20-pointed star, called a dodecahedron. Each of the points represented a veteran, and we painted the names of the 20 veterans, where they served, which branch of the military they served in, and when.

In 2017, there was a lot of controversy and opinions floating around about the flag, and we wanted to address that somehow. So the idea that year was kind of a hybrid between the maypole celebration and the flag. And we would carry a banner in front of it with the words, “it takes every color to support the red, white and blue.”

We bought this piece of bamboo from Bamboo Sorcery in Sebastopol (getting it home was quite the Odyssey), and although there are certainly a bunch of burly guys at the bottom of the pole in the photo, there’s no way that thing is standing up without everybody tugging on a ribbon.

In the last of the 10 years, our youngest daughter, Gwen, was graduating. We designed and built a big dragon, with her graduating class riding in the top.

When we found out Petaluma has a great parade, we were sold. We can’t wait to participate in all the years to come (check out our 2024 effort here).

Sunflower for Ukraine

In 2022, the Marin County Fair asked us if we would do something on the theme of art, agriculture and community. A sunflower seemed apropos, as a lot of people chose the sunflower as a symbol to express their solidarity with the people of Ukraine. So we wanted to make one—not surprisingly—as large as we could. We debuted it at the fair, and then it went to Sacramento to the Cal Expo.

Solstice community gatherings

In 2020, when the pandemic hit, Danny began prepping for another recession and looking for storage, but instead, found his current office in San Rafael (halfway between San Quentin and Home Depot). And this is where Danny really started digging into the world of geometry (which is a whole different story).

In this new space, we wanted to have events. We started with a couple of solstice events where we hung candles in the shape of a sphere, and the community gathered and we took turns lighting the candles.

But the space isn’t zoned for assembly. So we thought in three to five years, maybe somewhere up US-101, we'll find a building where we can do something. But you know, “years and years and years away…”

Today

And then one day, Danny found himself in Petaluma for a project, saw the building for lease, and thought “Wow, somebody's gonna have a lot of fun with that, but not us. That’s way too much.”

Long story short… a month later, we asked to see it, and here we are.

It’s a super overwhelming, enormous space, with 30-foot ceilings (you just don’t find spaces like that).

What’s the right way to truly experience and utilize this space?

Well, we had some ideas.