Nearly a decade ago, interior designer Alison Damonte met a couple who would be among the first clients of her namesake business. They had just moved from New York to Berkeley, and they asked her to personalize their new home. A few years after they were settled, the pair had an idea for the next phase of their family’s life.

“The owners wanted a laid-back weekend retreat where they could unwind from their busy lives in the Bay Area,” Damonte says. “They desired a place where their kids could hang out with friends in the pool, and they could host big dinner parties and jam sessions for their family and friends.”

They prioritized the open spaces just outside the Bay Area as the backdrop for this hideaway, and settled upon the Mayacamas Mountains between Sonoma and Napa. A parcel dotted with trees and streaked with a nearby stream offered a calm departure from the East Bay, although downtown Calistoga was only a few minutes’ drive away. Alongside Damonte, the couple hired Jarrod Denton, a partner at Signum Architecture, to determine how to capitalize on the setting with a quiet yet party-ready plan.

“The appeal of working with the owners included seeing their beautifully renovated home in Berkeley that Alison Damonte completed, and the location they chose to build on,” Denton says. “This little valley is one of my favorite bike rides, and even though it is so close to Calistoga, it feels wonderfully remote.”

The clients sought to construct the home sustainably, so Denton’s team designed a five-bedroom hub primarily using modular structures prefabricated by Method Homes at their factory outside Seattle. Six modules make up the second level of the home, five compose the ground floor, and each is carefully tailored to the site.

On the one hand, this made things easy: everyone had to make decisions about materials up front, and it lessened the need for in-person visits. But Damonte also describes the process as a leap of faith, and Denton notes that it came with logistical challenges. For instance, they had to figure out how to get the completed modules from Seattle to the Franz Valley.

“Only a certain height, width, and depth could come down the road and make its way up the specially engineered roadway to the site,” Denton says. “There were several solutions to this, including extending wood beams to complete the shape of a rectangle to keep them stable for transportation, then saw cutting the excess lumber in the field.”

By the time the structures arrived, the living room and connected deck were waiting. “After delivery, the modules were stitched together, and the custom elements and parapet roof were constructed on-site,” he says. It was an exercise in partnership between Denton and Damonte, since many of the big and small details—like pouring the foundation and selecting a kitchen faucet—happened simultaneously.

From the beginning, the owners asked for a simple exterior of concrete, glass, and wood to make the home blend into the rolling hills—while showcasing them in every room. But they requested that the interior be bold, since they have an extensive art collection that leans toward bright colors and textures.

“I knew from working with them that the husband preferred a more minimal aesthetic of white walls and understated furniture, while the wife tends to like a more playful and layered interior,” Damonte says. “This project was definitely a mix of all of these ideas: minimalism, playfulness, and provenance. All that said, we were definitely influenced by the natural landscape of the site and worked in a slightly more muted palette of greens, blues, and ochres for rooms that extended directly to the outdoors.”

Shop the Look

She chose a saturated Fireclay backsplash resembling turntables in the kitchen as a nod to the owners’ love of music, and selected geometric Clé tiles in the bathrooms where “we knew there would not be much competition with the artwork,” she says.

For his part, Denton ensured that the exterior had an equal amount of style—he selected stained cedar and shou sugi ban siding and framed it in aluminum to contrast all that glass. The interior is punctuated with details like hidden shades, flush doors and baseboards, and oversized openings. “These elements are far less commonly used in prefabricated construction, so we pushed the visual envelope and what owners can come to expect from prefab design,” he says.

The entire project, which was completed last summer, is steeped in the quiet beauty of the area and the pleasure of having space to get away. It showcases teamwork and creativity, and for Damonte, it was a chance to see how far she’d come. “I absolutely enjoyed working with these clients on their first home, but I also signed on because my own aesthetic had matured and refined from the time I started my business,” Damonte says. “I was excited to see how that would translate into a second project.”

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Project Details:

Architect of Record: Signum Architecture, LLP / @signumarchitecture

Builder: Fairweather and Associates

Structural Engineers: Ashley & Vance Engineering and Jordon Denio

Civil Engineering: Lescure Engineering, Inc.

Landscape Design: Terremoto/Alain Peauroi

Interior Design: Alison Damonte Design / @alisondamonte

Other: Method Homes/John Bacon

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An Art-Filled Napa Valley Home Pushes the Envelope for Prefab Design