exterior

The only Frank Lloyd Wright–designed home in Hawaii captures not only the architect's signature style, but also the spirit of its location—with an outdoor lava-rock hot tub overlooking the ocean and breathtaking, panoramic mountain views of three of the Big Island’s awe-inspiring volcanoes (Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai). The 1995 home was commissioned by Sanderson Sims in partnership with Taliesin Associated Architects, John Rattenbury, and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Originally conceived for the Cornwell Family in Pennsylvania in 1954, the 3,700-square-foot, passive solar hemicycle home embodies the architect's principles of organic architecture in which the structure blends harmoniously with the natural landscape.

For Gabriel Ramirez and his partner Sarah Mason Williams, following the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. The architects love Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, and they made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house “was very crisp and clean,” he says. “This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi.”

The upper floor contains most of the living spaces, while the lower concrete level houses the entry room, a triangular office, and a laundry and storage room.