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The red chimney and strategic diagonals throw accents against the simple silhouette.

A view of the home from the east side.

Evening at Gregory Creek

"When we started out, Casey wasn’t married and wasn’t dating anyone," says architect Arthur Furman. "So the original project brief was less about bedrooms and bathrooms, and more about the character of the home. Specifically, the shape. Casey had an image in his mind of a house he had photographed early in his career in a wooded area of Maine. The house was a basic shape—as one would draw as a child—just a box with a gabled roof." The home's simple gabled shape is emphasized by the use of burnished stucco on all sides.

With both an aging relative and a wheelchair user in mind, architect Neal Schwartz creates a family guesthouse designed to be accessible to all. Resident Elizabeth Twaddell enjoys the weather with her daughter Uma outside the guesthouse Schwartz designed for her mother-in-law, Surendra, who frequently visits for extended stays. A concrete driveway forks off from the main house to lead to a covered breezeway, sited between the new 775-square-foot structure and a two-car garage.

Stucco on the exterior keeps costs low and acts as a neutral backdrop for wood accents and drought-tolerant plants. The courtyard gate leads to the front door, which is out of street view.

Since Courtyard House is on a street that gets daily traffic from a nearby school, the home is protected by a concrete masonry wall that shields a courtyard, pool, and patio.

Lago Vista by Dick Clark + Associates

Lago Vista by Dick Clark + Associates

Designed by Fowler and Ward, this affordable two-unit home provides a beautiful solution to the Melbourne’s housing shortage.

The aluminum pop-out windows from Weather Shield offer privacy and shading, and double as cozy indoor seating.

LaHabra white stucco connects the home to its context of protomodern stucco-and-concrete houses dotting the neighborhood. "The window openings play with depth and give the stucco a carved feeling," says Legge.

For the redesign, they recovered the exterior in stucco and painted it black for more consistency. “We wanted the exterior to really marry the lot in a way,” says Blake. “We wanted it to be unique, but to also really compliment all of the trees and open space.”

Architect Erling Berg introduced a playful circular motif at this corner, and it’s repeated inside the entry.