When the pandemic took hold in 2020, Ash and Niroupa Shah purchased their second Paso Robles, California, vineyard for $1,550,000. “We were holed away, looking on Zillow,” Ash says, and they found the 22-acre property up for sale. In 2016, Ash, a former independent movie producer, began branching out from the film business, opening Trejo’s Tacos with actor Danny Trejo, and Friends & Family, a now popular bakery and café in East Hollywood. Since then, he and Niroupa were often eager for more projects.

On their new property there was a 1,600-square-foot double-wide trailer that needed renovations before it could be inhabited again. The Shahs—including their four children, Anya (16), Maia (14), Bodhi (11), and Ravi (10)—knew they wanted a house suitable for both living in and entertaining friends and family but were uncertain about the trailer’s potential. “When I first started coming up here, a couple of my friends had double-wides they had done up, and that made me realize, Oh, wow, you can actually make these things really nice,” says Ash.

In the end, the Shahs spent $450,000 renovating and furnishing the property, keeping everything in the structure up to code by gently reinforcing it and using materials light enough to be supported by the relatively weak structure of the mobile home. The reconstructed interior walls are lined with birch plywood, which also added strength, while the floors are laid with porcelain terrazzo tile, which cost $5.50 per square foot—less than half the cost and weight of a typical poured terrazzo floor yet providing the same visual effect throughout.

“Historically, terrazzo has been a poured cement with aggregate. Then it gets ground and polished down—so it’s really labor intensive,” says Bryan Ridley of Bracket Architecture Office, who worked on the home with Ash. The interior walls, however, required a heavier lift. “There’s a lot of care and detail put into the plywood throughout the whole home. They’re all butt joints and no trim, so that takes an extra level of precision,” says Ridley.

Other major costs included large windows purchased at Home Depot to open up the vineyard views from the living space and let in more natural light.

“We made a commitment to a handful of materials that have some richness to them. That’s what really makes the place sing.”
—Bryan Ridley, architect

The couple added an 1,800-square-foot wraparound deck made of red balau hard-wood to provide a vantage to the surrounding land. “The deck really connects you more to the immediate view of the vineyard and the neighboring property, so you really experience those outdoor spaces,” says Ridley, “whereas, from the inside, you capture the distance.”

“The open spaces, surrounded by our vineyard, make it a joy for the kids to explore and for us to entertain,” says Ash. “The 360-degree views with a clear night-time sky and thousands of stars make you never want to leave.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Bracket Architecture Office

Builder: Rogers & Pedersen Construction

Landscape Design: Madrone Landscapes

Cabinetry Design & Installation: Dunham Construction

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