Essential Design Details for Resort Style Living - Part III
As we continue to explore the design details that make our modern homes, we look at those elements that contribute to a spacious indoor outdoor resort style experience.
Outdoor Living
Floor to ceiling sliding glass walls seamlessly connect interior spaces with outdoor ones. This sensation of living both indoors and outside at once can be enhanced with the use of continuous flooring materials throughout a property.
At our Los Tilos house, the same porcelain floor tiles extend from inside the home out to the multiple backyard terraces.
Stylish and modern outdoor furnishings further ensure comfortable indoor outdoor living.
At our Hopen Place house a classic standing lamp, dining table, fun, boxy chandelier, sofa, fire pit, and mounted tv create a luxurious living room on the pool terrace, perfect for outdoor living throughout the year.
Hopen Place. Photo by William MacCollum.
Hopen Place. Photo by William MacCollum.
Water & Fire
Water and fire details add nature’s wild beauty to a home, and continue the indoor outdoor feeling.
Fire adds warmth and nature’s aliveness, inviting communal gathering.
Water brings a soothing and peaceful quality that invites contemplation and relaxation.
A riverbed-like pond wraps around the exterior of our Summit house dining room; an illuminated pool of water lays at the entrance to our Benedict Canyon home; and a modern fountain stretches across the courtyard of Mandeville Canyon.
Summit House. Photo by Roger Davies.
Benedict Canyon 2016. Photo by William MacCollum.
With walking paths across them, water features become reminiscent of streams being crossed in nature. Seen here at Laurel Way, Benedict Canyon, and Hopen Place.
Laurel Way. Photo by Art Gray.
Benedict Canyon 2016. Photo by William MacCollum.
Hopen Place. Photo by William MacCollum.
And when paired together, water and fire features add an invigorating and energizing primal tension to a home.
Bowls of fire in renderings of an upcoming project in Los Angeles; the backyard swimming pool is aflame with firelight at Buckskin Drive; and the textured entrance to our Laurel Way house is enhanced with a fire burning inside a cool plane of water.
More design details for water features include the considered placement and orientation of a swimming pool on a property’s site, to best take advantage of the views (this then informs the design and placement of the rest of the home), as seen at Laurel Way; floating walls of water made with translucent pool and spa borders at Trousdale; and underwater pool windows that add an ethereal watery light to indoor spaces, seen here in the home theater of our Hopen Place house.
Laurel Way. Photo by William MacCollum.
Trousdale. Photo by Jason Speth.
Hopen Place. Photo by William MacCollum.
Energy Efficiency
And lastly, as our homes are asked to do more and be more (such as double as year around home offices and staycation resorts), we want them to be as energy efficient as possible. Sustainable solar energy, high performance windows, smart thermostats for regulating heating and cooling, and high performance air filtration systems are popular and sought after design details for sustainable and healthy living.
Our Summit house was the first home permitted under the city of Beverly Hills’ Green Building Ordinance, and features 20’ double height glass walls that are 15% more energy efficient than the city’s code requirements. This glass expanse presents a modern architectural exterior, while flooding the open volume interior with natural light, views, and an expansive indoor outdoor quality.
Summit House. Photo by William MacCollum.