Christine Stucker and James Veal, founders of Stewart-Schafer, snapped up this architect-designed house on 18 acres in Connecticut as soon as they found it in 2019.
Almost everything about Bob Butler’s Nashville home is unexpected. Its sunken living room, open beams, and carport hark back to the 1950s, yet it’s barely more than a year old. The breezy, rectilinear residence transports visitors to midcentury Hollywood Hills or Palm Springs, though it’s located in a city known for Craftsman bungalows and the rococo mansions of country stars. Most surprising of all, Bob designed and built it himself, with only a few years experience under his belt and no formal training, and on a budget that would get the attention of many area residents: $115 per square foot.
The brick-and-glass residence accommodates limited mobility with a lift between levels and seamless thresholds between indoors and out.
Glazing on both sides of the home and an open floor plan allows for beautiful water and forest views throughout the living space.
A deck steps down from the kitchen to an outdoor dining area in the garden.
Whereas others might look at a board-formed cement wall in a basement and see, well, a concrete wall, Jess and Jonathan Taylor, the design duo behind the L.A.-based firm Taylor + Taylor, were inspired. The couple had purchased a virtually untouched 1952 house in east L.A. and that concrete wall became the backdrop for a new guest kitchen in the basement. "It was really the starting point of the whole design," says Jess Taylor. "As designers, our goal is to always try to incorporate the existing surroundings whenever possible, utilize them in practical ways, and be inspired by them."
Recently retired and ready to downsize, Paul and Melonie Brophy found a lot in Palo Alto that gave them the chance to start fresh. Their glass, concrete, and wood house, designed by Feldman Architecture, seems to float above a landscape by Bernard Trainor. Of the board-formed concrete wall, architect Taisuke Ikegami says, "It connects the building to the ground plane while allowing the house to be a landscape element."
In Englishman Bay, Maine, where his relatives have summered since the 19th century, a musician builds an idyllic hideaway for his family and their three parrots. In late 2015, the musician and his wife asked Whitten Architects and Nate Holyoke Builders (in Portland and Holden, respectively) for a durable, minimalist home, simultaneously rustic and Scandinavian, that would sit lightly on the land and make use of local materials whenever possible. A board-formed concrete hearth by Harkins Masonry, which can also act as seating, has a monumental presence in the three-season porch, which holds the dining and living areas.
NanaWall folding glass walls are engineered to perform in harsh climates, including the snowy winters of the Methow Valley.
The experience of the farm includes to the permaculture vegetable garden, fresh farm eggs, interactions with the goats and horses, and hiking through a landscape populated by giraffes, zebras, antelopes, and warthogs.
Pale hardwood floors complement pared-back wall tones in mushroom and off-white.
Owners Jill and Toby Gebben went on their first date by the shores of Lake Michigan, and long dreamed of building their own lakeside cottage.
"Like his fashion, Kenzo conceived his house as an eclectic convergence of East and West, with a Zen master’s reverence for nature,
A lofted sleeping space furnished with a king size Design Within Reach American Modern bed was made possible when the architects raised the ceiling to create a triangular skylight. The move carved out enough headroom to make the second-floor space usable, while still keeping the cottage in compliance with strict local zoning rules for “accessory” buildings.
Taliesyn composed the Cabin House as a unified cuboid volume containing a hybrid living area.
The Cowell House located at 171 San Marcos Avenue in San Francisco, California, is currently listed for $3,700,000 by Bert Keane of Vanguard Properties.
The flooring switches from warm, engineered white oak in the living room to concrete in the kitchen to make cleaning a breeze.
The centerpiece of the living room, a slate grey fireplace, is joined by large arch-shaped windows.
In 1979, architect Gary Michael designed a roof structure that mirrors the form of the original house to cover a section of the large ipe deck.
Noted Portland architect Richard Campbell designed this two-story residence on a wooded lot in Portland’s Highland Crest neighborhood as his primary home. After it was completed in 1966, the house received a 1979 addition by architect Gary Michael. It was later restored and renovated by Paul McKean Architecture in two phases, from 2011 to 2013 and 2018 through 2019.
“Off the kitchen is the 1,000-square-foot great room with an oversize woodburning fireplace, original wide-plank floors, custom wainscoting milled from trees on the property, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the creek and waterfall,” says the listing agent.
The home’s exterior went from beige to dark green, and a new matching fence encloses a patio. The house numbers are from HEWI.
In cooler weather, radiant heating is embedded beneath the wood floors.
Intended primarily as a social gathering place, the house has no dedicated bedrooms.
The couple found terra cotta breeze block that they stained black and installed so that the pattern was randomized. The builder was a bit scandalized that they wanted to cover the view from the living room, but Tom says, "The view is here all the time and it's nice to go from room to room and discover it, then rediscover it."
32 more saves