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The home is nestled in a stand of cedar, pine, and Douglas fir trees. The family relocated a smaller cabin to make room for their new retreat, and they plan to convert the original structure into a game room for the kids.

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.”

Built on a tight budget of $120,000, a retirement home in the mountains delivers unexpected contemporary design to a rural township.