Essential Design Details for Resort Style Living - Part II

As we continue to explore the design details of our modern homes, we look at those elements which help to create a sense of spacious weightlessness and connection within larger properties.

Living Small

Our ‘living small’ concept is a guiding principle that shapes the architectural design of our warm, modern homes. Houses that live small have view corridors throughout that provide visual connections across multi-story, open volume spaces. These view corridors ensure a homes’ inhabitants always stay connected. 

This concept was first successfully applied at our Summit house in Beverly Hills, where the open sight lines reach throughout the entire double height home.

At Bundy Drive visual connections stretch throughout the spacious central living area and out to the terraces, where, from these outdoor patios one enjoys views back into the interior of the home as well.

At Los Tilos, the L-shaped design of the home allows views of the primary bedroom along the liquid pathway of the swimming pool.

And at our Trousdale house, open sightlines stretch not only throughout the length of the home, but also vertically, as the open atrium allows unobstructed views from the lower level all the way up to the top floor skylight.

Stairs

The floating stairs featured in many of our projects allow light to filter through, ensuring a weightless presence within multi-story homes.

Stair details include invisible banisters of thick shatterproof glass, spiral helix shapes, multi-story switchback designs, and classic rising staircases, seen in an upcoming Los Angeles project, and at our Laurel Way, Walker Road, and Summit houses. 

Glass 

Glass walls, floors, bridges, and glass paneled skylight details add a lightness and floating feeling to interior spaces, expanding rooms beyond their four walls, as they bring the outdoors inside. 

Views of the sky and surrounding hillsides envelop the interiors of our Trousdale, Benedict Canyon, and Los Tilos homes.

In addition to its floor to ceiling glass walls, a detail in the ceiling at Laurel Way further expands the living room beyond its walls, as the design draws the gaze out to the horizon line and vanishing point of the sky.

Floating Walls 

Other design details that lend a floating quality to homes are leaving space open between solid walls and the ceiling and floor, and the addition of pocket walls. Pocket walls allow floor to ceiling glass wall panels to disappear completely into the structure of a home, when opened.

Details of the pocket wall mechanism can be seen outside of the piano bar at Bundy Drive, the primary bedroom at Summitridge Drive, and the indoor outdoor kitchen at Los Tilos.

Light & Shadow

The playful dance of sunlight and shadow can be harnessed and directed with window and skylight details. Clerestory, portal, and ribbon windows of different shapes, set at various heights throughout a home create changing patterns throughout the day. 

Bright squares of sunlight dapple the interiors of our Benedict Canyon and Mandeville Canyon homes.