Wine Country, California

Located on a hillcrest overlooking the wine country, this new two-story 1,600 square-foot home was designed for a wilderness-loving family. The design highlights connections to the outdoors and provides comfortable spaces within a small, intimate building envelope.

Primary living spaces are organized around a central covered breezespace that provides a year-round connection to the outdoors, and frames dramatic views of the surrounding vineyards and mountains. Twelve-foot wide folding doors flank each end of the outdoor room, further blurring the line between indoors and out. This solar-powered home is integrated into a hillside, creating two distinct levels: a family living area on the main level, and a private lower level master bedroom retreat. A highlight of the master suite is a covered outdoor two-person shower-with-a-view that spills out into a garden.

Creative means of maximizing space include: situating kids’ built-in beds and desks in bay window pop-outs; utilizing vertical space via lofts in the kids’ bedrooms; connecting upper and lower levels via a spiral stair; providing ample connections to the outdoors, with deck and breezespace.

Designed in collaboration with Camille Urban Jobe.