Views add the inspiring beauty of nature to modern architecture, and an elemental warmth to contemporary design. It’s a pairing we love, especially in our primary bedroom suites, which whenever possible, we orient towards the views. Designing for views takes know-how and skill, as framing beautiful, unobstructed vistas requires precise structural engineering support and strict adherence to local building and safety codes. We’re grateful to be known as view specialists, and love designing modern primary suites around their views. 

Out-to-the-edge floating glass walls that eliminate the divide between outdoors and in can bring nature’s thrilling visuals right inside indoor spaces like bedroom suites, ensuring they never feel too boring or predictable. The sights of sunrises, sunsets, landscapes, and city lights, which can inspire both calm contemplation and exhilarating energy, also support overall health and wellbeing. Studies have shown that connecting to nature can help to lower heart rate, blood pressure, stress, and cortisol levels, while improving focus, cognitive function, and creativity. Additionally, exposure to each day’s passing natural light encourages alignment with our circadian rhythm, which can help to regulate sleep cycles. Benefits which make view-centered primary bedrooms perfect for luxury resort style living (learn more about the pros of adding nature’s elements to modern homes in our blog, The Nature of Biophilic Design).

Laurel Way was one of our first houses celebrated for its views. Set high up on a steep hill with panoramic vistas in all directions, its primary bedroom looks out from the bed onto an expanse of Los Angeles through floor to ceiling glass walls. From the primary bathroom and attached private terrace, palm trees and blue skies create a classic LA scene, day and night. 

The art-filled primary bedroom at Serenity is a comfortable private retreat that becomes a bright and sunny poolside den with mountain views and direct access to a pool terrace and putting green when sliding glass walls are opened. These views continue in the primary bathroom, where a soak in the handcrafted walnut bathtub provides a look through floor to ceiling glass at the lush terrace landscaping and sunlit mountains.

Bighorn’s primary bedroom is similarly sited poolside, with a sliding glass wall just steps from the bed. Views of desert mountains and calm pool waters can be seen through the floor to ceiling glass panels that are echoed in the primary bathroom.

Our Bundy Drive House is a celebration of the sporting and entertainment lifestyles of Los Angeles, but also a quiet home for rest and rejuvenation. In the primary bedroom, floor to ceiling glass walls on three sides look out on the greenery of the city, one wall opening onto a private terrace, and another taking in views of The Getty Center, one of the greatest repositories of art in the world.

Set far out on a slope, Los Tilos is all about the stunning vistas that reach all the way to downtown Los Angeles. Each room and every floor of the home opens up to its own panorama, amplified by entire walls of glass. A modern L-shaped design ensures visual connection and open sightlines between the primary bedroom suite, perched at the edge of the property, and the rest of the house, for a sense of “living small”.

The primary bedroom floats high above the city, taking in views from the bed and sitting area, while the primary bathroom frames a view of the nearby mountains in a cutout floor to ceiling window.

Another Hollywood Hills home, Hopen Place, features a primary bedroom with ultra modern design. The room is wrapped in glass and jetliner views of glittering lights and sunset skies, cooled by the water of an infinity pool that sits just on the other side of the glass.

Benedict Canyon’s primary bedroom features an entire wall of sweeping panoramic views. LA’s green canyons and ridges envelop the room, as well as the attached primary bathroom and terrace.

At Summitridge Drive, sliding glass walls on multiple sides of the upper level suite add a luxury feeling, as the expansive LA views reach past the private terrace, all the way to the bed.  

Trousdale’s view-centric design, which caps both ends of the main living area in glass walls, continues the aesthetic in the primary bedroom, where views of the blue LA skies extend out into the city

Photos courtesy of William MacCollum, Art Gray Photography, Simon Berlyn, Anthony Barcelo, and Jason Speth.