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Purchased from its original owner, the 1957 dwelling was reinvigorated, and turned into a space the family can call home for many years to come. “It’s been amazing to see new families buy in our neighborhood, and restore the homes back to their midcentury glory,” says Leah.

The couple behind Field Theory help their brother reimagine a dreary 1890s estate as the irresistibly chic Hotel Lilien.

The dining table is where Kate starts her day with a cup of tea and her laptop, sorting out her calendar, booking travel, and catching up on emails. Typically, she has music playing to keep her focused while she’s home alone. And, as she’s bouncing around so often, when she’s not unpacking, doing laundry, and repacking for her next trip, she’s planted on her back porch with friends, garlic cheese bread, and a bit of vino.

A long guardrail, made from trees felled to clear the property, doubles as extra seating.

The sod roof is angled to create a sweeping elevation on approach and is planted with grass tussocks cut from the hillside during construction. “The tussocks camouflage the house, melting it into the landscape,” explains architect Kate Brown.

Although hard to pin down, Claire loosely describes the home’s style as “European farmhouse.” “It’s a mix of old and new—mostly old!” she says.

At the ranch of Nancy and Tony Lilly in the hills of Sonoma, an area plagued by drought and fires, landscape designer John Greenlee struck a balance between beauty and resiliency with a water-wise meadow-garden.

The organic placement of the windows echoes the knots on the trunks of the surrounding trees.

The interlocking ceramic tiles on the roof provide micro-ventilation, which improves the hygrothermal properties of the tiles and helps disperse summer heat. The entire roof is finished with brick, from the stepped eaves to the gutter overflow spillways.

The kitchen cabinets were made with cabinet boxes set into framing, then a primed drywall shell covered with a textural Roman Clay finish, and sealed.

House in Chilean Forest by Lucas Maino aerial view

"One visit over the winter, and we drove up to find four feet of snow covering the driveway and stairs down to the cabin,

Tasked with renovating a 1950s ranch in Northern California, Ogawa Fisher Architects revived an existing Japanese garden at the center of the home as a central organizing element. Low-slung, wide decks (inspired by the Japanese “engawa,” or elevated walkway) and deep roof soffits expand the living spaces, frame views, and blur the boundaries between inside and outside. The garden is the second of three courtyards that orients the various wings of the home from front to back, creating a vast sense of openness while also maintaining privacy from other areas of the house and the street.

The house is hidden from the road and sits on a hilltop clearing that overlooks the rolling farmland of the Mississippi River bluffs in Western Wisconsin. From this vantage point, there is a 270-degree view, with dramatic sunsets over the distant hills.

The sections of flat roof were economical to build, which allowed the use of high-quality wood shingles on the pitched roofs. Stone piers support the south-side trellis, emphasizing the home’s rustic inspiration.