McMansions often look ostentatious because they're trying too hard. This large city residence in Pacific Heights, San Francisco, designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, deploys a variety of architectural elements, including an oval roof lantern, within a highly disciplined—and rather uncomplicated—framework of wood shingles and painted woodwork. The two-and-a-half-story street facade is an asymmetrical composition that would appear chaotic were it not informed by a highly educated sense of style. Stern draws upon the work of Bay Area architects such as Bernard Maybeck, whose early-20^th-century houses characteristically blended craftsman, Queen Anne, and Japanese influences. The result here is a large house with a bold, but not overwhelming, sense of scale.