Goodbye Grid and Cushy Beds, Hello Pool in the Wilderness

Five years ago, Jeff Baird, a financial investment manager and his wife, Millie, an avid environmentalist, acquired 165 wooded acres in a valley west of Healdsburg, in California’s Sonoma County. They did so largely because their hillside home in Berkeley, designed by San Francisco architect Malcolm Davis, left them desiring outdoor play space for their two daughters, ages 7 and 10. "We really wanted that for them, so we asked Malcolm to design a place focused on the outdoors," explains Jeff. "We wanted a second home that was not a wine chateau or an urban dwelling."