Just Deserts: 5 Standout Homes in Arid Climates

The kitchen island is topped with PaperStone in slate and wrapped in the same steel used to clad the house’s facade. “We matched the color to create a ‘2001: Space Odyssey’ monolith,” Garlick says. He and his wife, Susan Elliott, a chef, cook at the commercial Wolf range they purchased at a restaurant supply store.

The master bedroom opens on two sides to the outdoors, where Lockyer placed a custom black-chrome wall clock.

A floor-to-ceiling window frames the dining area.

For the seating area, the couple selected a Charles sofa by Antonio Citterio for B&B Italia in addition to CH07 Shell chairs by Hans Wegner, a PK61 coffee table by Poul Kjærholm, and a Nesta rug from Design Within Reach. The dining table, an original design by Burnette, is surrounded by stools that belonged to a previous owner.

For the landscape design, Burnette sought to maintain the property’s natural vegetation and rocky ground surface.

Near the main house, James Turrell’s pyramidal Skyspace structure invites visitors into its dark recess for a chance to view the heavens through a perspective-altering cutout. Most of Murren’s museum-quality art collection is inside the house, including a Robert Rauschenberg piece, a set of Andy Warhol prints, and a hologram by Turrell.

Murren chose maintenance-free materials, such as Stepstone precast concrete pavers for exterior decks and river-rock-covered flat roofs. He recalls his neighbors’ astonishment and delight when “we went from a giant hole in the ground to a two-story house in just four days.”

Architect Maurice McKenzie was inspired by symmetrical design, and the resulting linear and stark-white architecture makes a statement against the dry desert terrain. Photo by: JUCO

Warren Platner, though, gets the credit for the Wire series lounge chair for Knoll in the bathroom.