After Emily Kwan finished breast cancer treatment, she decided she didn’t want to wait anymore to live the way she wanted. Specifically, she wanted pets and she wanted to be in downtown San Francisco.

“I was thinking that I don’t know how long I’ll live and I want to enjoy what I can right now. I told myself I want to speak up for myself,” said Kwan, 55, who is a stay-at-home mom and an artist.

Kwan and her husband, Wing Lui, 73, who owns a hair salon in Pacific Heights, were living in an area on the outskirts of the city called Sutro Heights because he wanted to be by the ocean. They had no pets because he convinced her it was too much work, said Kwan.

The first step she took after her cancer treatment was finished in 2015 was to get a white dog she named Ricey. In 2016, she bought a $2.42 million, 1,924-square-foot, two-story, two-bedroom house on a peaceful street in Telegraph Hill, a neighborhood that is in the city. She told her husband that she’d love for him to move there with her, but if he didn’t want to, that was OK. “I can’t waste my time anymore,” she said.

Lui agreed to move there. He didn’t want to leave his house by the sea, where he could smell the ocean and see dramatic sunsets, he said. But he knew it was important to Kwan. “As long as she enjoys it, I will be fine,” he said. “With life there are different stages and you do different things,” The same philosophy applied to the pets: They are a lot of work, but it is impossible to dislike animals, he said. “In life you can’t complain so much. If you are in a partnership, then you have to be in that partnership.”

The couple decided to renovate the house on Telegraph Hill, spending around $8 million, including the cost of the original home, furniture and fees, to turn it into a modern, four-level, three-bedroom house. The project added a roof deck that has views of the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and downtown. In April 2024, they moved in with their two children, who are 16 and 18. They now have two dogs and a cat.

San Francisco architectural firm Edmonds + Lee designed the home with the goal of spaces for privacy, restoration, serenity, quiet and family unity.

Kwan and her husband, Wing Lui, share this office, which has a large Arun Patel Studio photo of the Chinese region of Huangshan.

The primary bedroom is designed in various hues of taupe and white, with a large B&B Italia bed.

Kwan hired Vivian Lee, a partner with Robert Edmonds at San Francisco architectural firm Edmonds + Lee and a fellow mom from her children’s school. The main design goal for the house was to create spaces for privacy, restoration, serenity, quiet and family unity, says Kwan. Each level has private and public spaces, as well as visual and physical access to the outdoors.

Edmonds + Lee designed a plan that created a new floor by excavating below the house. The bottom level is now a family room with glass pocket doors that open to a backyard with concrete and wood walls, a water fountain and a garden landscaped with small trees and flowers. Palm trees from the neighbor’s yard tower at one end and provide privacy and lushness.

On the second floor, a narrow hallway with a TV room alcove leads to Kwan and Lui’s son’s room, which has a balcony overlooking the yard below. On the other end of the hall is an office that the couple shares, sparsely decorated with a large Arun Patel Studio photo of the Chinese region of Huangshan, a desk and two nubby white chairs from Italian company Porro.

Their daughter’s room is on the third floor, down the hall from the main suite, which has a large bedroom in various hues of taupe and white, with a large B&B Italia bed and an alcove area with a desk. The windows, which have views of the Bay, are accented with sheer gray curtains to emphasize the feeling of a sanctuary; the bathroom is almost all white marble, with a large steam shower and bathtub. “We definitely didn’t want high contrast moments, with black and white or bright colors,” Lee said. “That’s not a good environment for someone to come home and decompress.”

The bottom level is now a family room.

Glass pocket doors open to a backyard with concrete and wood walls, a water fountain and a garden landscaped with small trees and flowers. Palm trees from the neighbor’s yard tower at one end and provide privacy and lushness.

The kitchen, on the fourth floor, is designed by Boffi. On one side of the room is a gray velvet banquette and a large oval table where Kwan holds weekly dinners and card games with friends. The living room has a glass wall at one end with a pocket door that leads out to a patio. Kwan’s two paintings of fog and a clearing sky are above a long white sofa. The three coffee tables are low to the ground to allow a better visual connection with the sofa on the other side of the room and from the kitchen through to the patio.

Kwan was raised in Hong Kong, where her mother still lives, by parents who made a living in real-estate development. When she was 13, she was sent to boarding school in Los Angeles, and when she was 15, she went to live with her college-aged brother and sister in a house the family owned in San Francisco while she attended high school in the city. She studied hotel management but never got a college degree because she moved to Hong Kong to help run her parents’ business. She and her first husband opened a Japanese restaurant in Hong Kong before getting divorced in 2003.

The kitchen, on the fourth floor, is designed by Boffi.

On one side of the kitchen is a gray velvet banquette and a large oval table where Kwan holds weekly dinners and card games with friends.

After the divorce, Kwan moved back to San Francisco. She’d known Lui since she was 15—he had cut her hair when she was a teen. They reconnected and married in 2005. Since Lui loved Sutro Heights, they bought a four-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot house there for $1.375 million in 2004 and spent about $2 million to renovate it. They still own the house but rent it out.

Kwan said she and Lui didn’t hire an interior decorator for the Sutro Heights remodel. They bought modern furniture from companies like B&B Italia and kept the walls white. With the new house, Lui said that he didn’t want to interfere with the architect. But he made it known that it was important to him to keep the walls white and the floor a natural material. “When you go to a home, you want to be in a place where nothing will interfere with your mind,” he said.

Now that the family is settled, Kwan says her children don’t ever want to leave the new home, which is fine by her. She says having breast cancer made her appreciate her friends and family more. “I enjoy everything more now,” she says.