With careful attention to the site and climate and to the owners' needs, this large house in the country exploits the traits of the traditional Western ranch house. It is a house with a timeless quality. It embodies the easy informality, the sense of shelter, easy movement indoors and out, and warm materials traditional with the ranch type house.
The site is a knoll. Access is from the road to the West, the only side where the site does not give complete privacy. On this side, privacy is achieved by an almost blank, but not unfriendly facade, fronted by the parking area. This west-facing facade also minimizes the effect of the hot afternoon sun. Other windows that face west are sheltered by wide overhangs.
The owners made sure their main outdoor living area-off the living and dining rooms, and used for entertaining-faced east to provide afternoon shade. They also wanted a good view of the wooded slopes from the kitchen southward and a terrace off the master bedroom on the north. The site was to be disturbed by grading as little as possible, and particularly the fine old oak trees were to be preserved.
Every room in this house except the kitchen opens to an outdoor living area. Movement in and out is easy, through large passageways onto floor and terrace surfaces at the same level.
The living room separates the bedroom wing from the cooking and eating wing. It opens to two paved out- door living areas, the more intimate patio and the more expansive east-facing terrace, for a choice of sun or shade any time of the day. You can enter either wing without passing through the center of the house.
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source: Sunset Books - Sunset Homes 1967
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