Modern Mountain Retreat: Twisted Ridge

Twisted Ridge, a beautiful project nestled in the mountains above Hudson Valley. But Twisted Ridge? It's a curious name that I suspect has a story behind it. Mike, welcome to Twisted Ridge. Well, thank you, John. And I understand this is where the discussion started with your client on the ridge here. Our first meeting right here, this young couple buys this 11-acre lot. We got here. This is actually the only thing that was on the site. Oh, wow. A vacant land with this beautiful bench. Yeah. And we sat here and we were like, what are the goals of the project? Yeah, I bet there was some discussion around the placement of the house. I mean, I see a nice flat part there. It is. There's a couple of moments where the house could sit, but we realized that placing it up here maximized the viewshed for the family of these amazing Catskill Mountains and really brought that into their everyday lives. All right, Mike, I had to show you this space first. It's my favorite space in the entire house. You couldn't wait, John? I couldn't. Look at this. Come on. Oh, yes. This does feel nice. Now, I would argue it feels nice because of the proportions. The room is 20 feet wide by 40 feet long by 10 foot high. OK. It's all math to you. It's always math for us. This is what we're doing. So what are the tricks? So you'll notice there's no TV in the room and actually minimal lighting in the ceiling. We worked with WAC lighting on that. But the main source of lighting is here. It's the view, right? We glaze this entire view. We have our kitchen, dining and living, and we're just giving back to the family this view no matter what season or time of day. But that was the brief. That was. All right, let me take you to the primary suite. But first, though, let's check out the primary bath. You can see here tone on tone material, really, really simple. And we actually use this floor tile to really tie the entire space together. Lovely little detail. Yeah. OK, now imagine this is your primary bedroom. I'm loving it. Right. And every morning you get to wake up and this is your view. You take your Lutron shades, you bring them on up and that's what's revealed. Whoa. And because we're another floor up, the view is enhanced. Yeah. It's almost like architecture at the treetops. OK, so this is the guest house. Yeah, this is this little special spot on the property. And you'll notice this beautiful little living room. But what is looking out to the view? It's the view maybe every single time. But you'll notice something. Let me show you in ArchiCAD over here. I can show you what's going on. You'll notice as you come down this hall where the bedrooms are, it's private. We removed all the doors and windows to create visual privacy. Right. And then I've noticed on the opposing side, the main house, you've done the same again. You've gone solid. Exactly. The idea being, give the main view when we're in the public space, but give the guests privacy when needed. So, John, what was originally ordered on that little old bench over there on the ridge really has been delivered here. Yeah, I mean, we're outside here on this cantilever deck that's just almost embracing the mountains, right? We have this public area for them to dine and entertain with. It's just really, really magical for us. Very special. Yeah. I mean, it's really just the architecture reacting to its site. I've got to say, John, this would have to be my favourite view of the property here. It is this magic moment, right? It's the courtyard that's happening where we have the main house and the guest house. And by angling them the way that we did, we create this intimate courtyard for the family. The architecture is actually acting as a privacy for them. Now, while we're out here, John, why is the property called Twisted Ridge? I mean, we're on a ridge, but I'm not really seeing it. The Twisted actually comes back to our architecture. What we did is we took a simple A-frame and we twisted it at the top on all three volumes. It creates a lot of special things for us. One, snow can get easily shed off the roof. Two, it creates maximum solar exposure for future solar that we're going to put on the project. And three, there's a sense of poetry here. The architecture starts to dance like the beautiful mountains beyond. OK, so the Twisted Ridge is referring to your architecture. Yeah, our team created this magic moment up here on the beautiful landscape. Actually, I have another great architecture thing to show you. OK, full of surprises. Let's go. So if you look right here, Mike, the two roofs are coming together. We have the guest pavilion coming down, crashing into the main house as if it's one thing. One roof line. You architects. I can't help it. This is what we do. I know a little bit about Pup Studio. This is a common tactic of theirs to break apart the elements, to help create thoughtful architecture that's integrated into the landscape. I know we keep saying it, but when all is said and done, this project is all about that view.