WHEN we queried our San Francisco "bureau last week about the prize-winning firm of architects, Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons (see ART), the answer was already blueprinted. No two reporters were ever more on top of their story than Bureau Chief Richard Pollard and Correspondent Charles Mohr. Pollard, it turned out, had commissioned the firm to design a house for him on Belvedere Island in San Francisco Bay (construction starts this week). Mohr rents Architect Donn Emmons' own house, high on a hill above Mill Valley, overlooking the bay. Neither of these glasshouse enthusiasts had a stone to throw at the architects. The only complaint came from Ralph, Mohr's half-dachshund. In the Emmons house, with its two-story living-room windows, the second floor is a mezzanine, and the only staircase is a ship's ladder with polished brass railings. Ralph could climb up with a great deal of wheezing. But he could never get down again by himself, until once in desperation he dived like a seal off the top rung. Now he lives across the bay in Oakland, in a house where there are no ship's ladders.

Pollard's L-shaped dream house has a glass-walled living room with a view of lofty Mt. Tamalpais on one side and the incomparable San Francisco skyline on the other. Just outside is a bulkhead-type dock, flanked by a slip for Pollard's Penguin-class sailboat, in which he skims over the Belvedere lagoon.

Biggest poser for the architects was Pollard's snoring, which has been so loud that his wife Peggy often banished him to a guest room. Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons solved the problem by designing a sort of glass-enclosed sponsor's booth in a corner of the master bedroom. Once the house is finished, Dick may be seen but not heard.

Over in Mill Valley the Mohr family, happily installed in the Emmons house with its long view of the bay, have taken up birdwatching. "But you don't have to hike anywhere to watch them," says Mohr. "Since three sides of the living room are of glass, you can spot the birds from a reclining position on the sofa."

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