houses

The pool juts out perpendicularly from the main house; the land was bulldozed to become level with the concrete pavers.

The east-facing pool terrace is outfitted with a series of Eos lounge chairs (and plenty of inflatable swim toys).

Photo by Caroll Taveras

Made from white aluminum and oiled teak, the wooden sun loungers are from Viteo’s Pure collection. The long low table is made of Corian by DuPont and comes from the same line of outdoor furniture.

The bed and bench are from Desiron; the wall sconces are by Arne Jacobsen for Louis Poulsen. The operable windows and doors throughout are by Bayerwald.

A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.

Sliding doors from Western Window Systems connect the living room and the deck, which is made of pressure-treated pine planks surrounding a black gravel pit.

The three structures that make up the James-Robertson residence are framed in black-coated aluminum and steel.

Wildlife are frequent visitors here, but the area’s active woodpeckers aren’t very welcome, so the house is clad in corrugated metal siding by Recla Metals.

The geometric pool also captures views of the lush landscape.

While the slate-clad northern facade has few windows and a steeply pitched roof, the southern facade is dominated by glass with the solar-panel-clad roof strategically angled to catch the sun.