Property of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Dettner, Ross, California | Architect: Henry Hill

10/08/2025 12:20:00 PM

MANY yardsticks have been devised to measure a good house, but the best rule of thumb is to ask the people who live in one. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Dettner, whose house in Ross, California, appears here, feel that they have exactly what they want, a house that holds the essentials of good living. "It is friendly and welcoming. We think it is beautiful," they say. Although not large for a family of five-parents, two teenage boys and a grown son-it uses its natural assets to make the house seem large. And every member of the family has a share of privacy.

The architect, Albert Henry Hill, understood the owners' desire that their house afford easy companion- ship within the family. He designed the patio as an outdoor common room at the heart of the house. Also recognized was the parallel need for privacy. The three bedrooms are widely dispersed and have separate en- trances. Near the pool the youngsters have a playroom which serves as their living and guest room. It has a soda fountain and laboratory for "ham" radio.

Nearly half the house is outside of its walls. The Dettners asked for a layout with as many outdoor rooms as their hilltop would hold. Except for the three bedrooms and kitchen, inside and out seem to merge. Architect Hill has used various devices to heighten the illusion. He has allowed the paving of garden paths to continue indoors as the floor of sunroom, entrance hall and passage to kitchen. Flagstone patio steps pass through the house to the terrace on the other side. Sheltering eaves are extensions of ceilings. A panorama of the valley and mountains, captured by 76 feet of glass walls, stretches out on two sides.

The house is wedded to the land. Color and texture of materials are true to the rocks and trees of the hillside. Warm tones of redwood, cedar and pine are in character with the trees of the property. Gray-gold Carmel stone echoes the shale bank behind the house.

Entertaining is easy because the house adapts itself to large or small parties with equal grace. Often parents and children entertain simultaneously: the former at the sunroom bar, the latter at the playroom soda fountain. Their friends like the house so well that the Dettners entertain frequently. A guest cottage is planned for a point below the house.