Architect Tom Kundig of Seattle firm Olson Kundig has designed homes all over the world, but when the opportunity came to create what became the Blue Ridge House on vineyard land in Delaplane, Virginia, 50, miles west of Washington, D.C., “I honestly couldn’t have been more excited,” he recalls. “That landscape is so freaking beautiful. I lucked out.”

The Blue Ridge House is perched atop a grass-and-tree-covered hillside overlooking a winery owned by Kundig’s clients, a couple with four kids. The couple reached out to his firm for what they do best. From a tree house in Costa Rica to a steel-clad cabin in Vermont, Olson Kundig’s homes are kinetic and serene, responding to their surrounding landscapes with tactile materials and blurring the boundaries of indoor and outdoor space.

Here, Olson Kundig’s design began with a concrete plinth erected at the crest of the hill, which not only anchored the 3,400-square-foot house but set its second floor at eye level with the surrounding tree canopy. This sensation was enhanced by creating wings that extend in multiple directions, appearing to hover over the landscape.

The two-story home is entered from the lower level, which is built into the hillside and, in addition to a mudroom and laundry area, includes a cellar for the clients’ wine collection. Living spaces, the kitchen, and bedrooms are on the second floor.

“This being a family home, the most important rooms are a kitchen and the gathering area,” Kundig explains. “If you look at it in plan, this wasn’t a religious reference, but it’s a cruciform sort of shape. It allows you to plant the kitchen in the intersection right on top of the crown, and then let the arms go in either direction. It was a floor plan that I just thought worked out for a happy family that always wanted to gather in the middle.”

Inside, concrete floors and steel framing pair with large-format glass panes and natural wood. The home’s exterior is clad in Cor-Ten steel, a Kundig trademark, which gives the home a rich patina. “I always say you use a rugged material like concrete or steel, and you let it weather naturally. And what that does is you got hard on the outside, soft on the inside,” Kundig explains. “So when you’re inside the building. It’s a totally different experience.”

The open kitchen has black walnut cabinetry that gives way to white quartz countertops. A few feet away is a custom dining table made with white oak, designed to convert from three square feet during more intimate meals to a three-by-nine-foot rectangle when the family hosts large family gatherings. “The wood was important in this house,” Kundig says. “We wanted to do everything in a soft, peaceful, quiet finish to fit into that natural woodland.”

The longer of the two intersecting rectangular forms is devoted primarily to private spaces: four bedrooms and two bathrooms for the kids to one side, and the primary bedroom, an additional bathroom, and a study to the other. The primary juts out over the vineyard, allowing the client-couple to awaken to panoramic views down the hill. The north arm of the “cruciform” holds a combined living and dining area, ensconced in glass with a deck off to one side.

As seen in several of Olson Kundig’s homes, a particular trademark is the firm’s uncommonly large, manually-operated window-walls and screens, which dramatically enhance indoor/outdoor living. The Blue Ridge House follows suit: a 20-foot kinetic steel door, operated manually with a wheel, opens the kitchen to a screened porch. There is also a 12-foot-tall sliding barn door that closes off the children’s wing when not in use.

The guest house was designed with Murphy beds for flexibility—it can serve as extra sleeping space, a home office, or a yoga studio. Kundig calls the adjacent pool “a little jewel.”

For both the clients and Kundig, the idea for Blue Ridge House was to yield to the undulating, verdant terrain. “That’s why they came to me,” Kundig says. “I said, How can we disappear this house into the landscape? I hope that, as things mature, you won’t see the house. You’ll feel like it’s a part of that landscape. Making that happen is my instinct, if I can pull it off.”

More from Olson Kundig:

An Olson Kundig Tree House Peeks Over the Treetops in Costa Rica

A Kinetic Facade Opens This Spectacular Mountain House to the Grand Teton Landscape

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Olson Kundig

Builder: Pure Form Builders

Structural Engineer: PCS Structural Solutions

Mechanical Engineer: Rocky Point Mechanical

Landscape Design: Michael Boucher Landscape Architecture

Lighting Design: Niteo Lighting Inc.

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