The 5300-square foot home was designed to have the floor plan uniquely configured to provide all the Primary Living spaces at the second level, and all the secondary Bedroom/Bath/Recreation Room at the first level. This floor plan “inversion” provides unbelievable panoramic views that would not have been possible with a conventional floor plan design. Expansive windows and doors were strategically placed taking advantage of natural light throughout the day and creating plenty of Outdoor Living spaces with great Indoor/Outdoor connectivity. The home is also axially aligned with Pinnacle Peak, Camelback Mountain, and McDowell Mountain peak providing enriching daytime and nighttime panoramic views in many directions.
The exterior design and massing is complete with a front “porch” and broad shaded roofs reminiscent of regionally appropriate Ranch homes. The exterior materials reflect the character of Western Regional Ranch Architecture but with a Contemporary interpretation and current siding materials that provide longer lasting durability of aluminum, but with the richness of the warm wood tone. The metal standing seam roof provides a striking contrast to the earth tone taupe stucco walls. 32 solar roof panels are skillfully hidden above the primary sloping roof.
The home was constructed with SIP (Structural Insulated Panels) roof and wall panels, rather than the traditional method of drywall construction, which come prefabricated, saving on on-site construction costs. Other advantages are energy efficiency, high levels of insulation, reduced product waste, and structural stability.
The Interior Design of the home was designed with cool whites, interlaced with soft and rich wood tones offering bold contrasts of dark to light accents. The Kitchen is the helm for entertainment, and is blessed with internal and external views in all directions. The cabinetry is composed of four colors of white, grey, mushroom brown, with the visual pop of reconstituted Zebrawood. The panoramic view Dining Booth Alcove is the undeniable place to retreat to for morning coffee, or dinner. The desert yellow green leather seats in combination with the graphic print of the seat backs create a wonderful visual link to the desert vegetation beyond. The Family Conversation area is enhanced by the tightly grooved wood ceilings designed to offer an acoustic benefit as well the intimacy of a lower ceiling. The linear fireplace is the focal accent of the room with charcoal grey tile that effectively camouflages the TV, but is also pinstriped with aluminum channels for added intrigue. Two display niches provide the visual depth of the thick walls and a highlight for the artifacts within. The Master Bath has the serenity of a luxurious Spa, yet with the well thought out compactness and efficient use of space, including an exterior door leading to the outdoor shower at the second level to enjoy the sunlight or moonlight on your face while showering in complete privacy. The Outdoor Entertainment area has all comforts needed of a fire table, BBQ, Bistro Table, and lounge seating.
The desert has a magnetic attraction that's hard to explain.
This place has such beauty in the landscape, in the environment, and diversity.
The Sonoran Desert, as one of the, you know, many deserts around the world,
the Sonoran Desert in particular is one of the luscious deserts you can ever encounter.
Depending on the time of year, the desert always looks good.
Whether it's with an ironwood with purple flowers or with a polyverde tree with yellow flowers,
there's always something that pops.
We're sitting at D.C. Ranch, which is a community within Scottsdale.
Scottsdale is about 35 miles north to south, and we're geographically in the middle.
And for the most part, what's north of us, it's just houses.
So we feel like we're slightly to the north, looking down over everything,
because the really vibrant hub of activity is really south of where we are.
The evolution and design is an interesting spectrum right now
between traditional and contemporary thoughts.
We chose contemporary for what just was a cleaner, calmer feeling
about detail and about material interactions.
What really stands out to me is that although some of the building materials
on the exterior of the house are heavy, western regional materials,
overall, to me, the house looks light because the roof looks like it's floating.
It's very, very thin.
It's candle-levered in a lot of areas to get passive solar.
But I think it has an overall light feel,
and I think you can tell right away that it's something special.
The original idea for the home was somewhat conventional,
where you have your primary living spaces on the main level.
Secondary spaces on the upper level.
But after getting up on a ladder,
realizing that 12-foot makes a huge difference in the desert environment of what you can see,
and the vistas that you're afforded gave me an epiphany to flip the house upside down
and essentially say,
why don't we try putting our primary living at the main level,
secondary spaces at the lower level?
So when you walk through the front door,
the front door is actually a 10-foot tall door,
so it looks formidable, but you get a grip on it,
and it feels substantial in quality.
And then you enter into this foyer that is fairly serene.
It leads your eye to the stairs that take you to the second level.
We also put in some metal rods that are kind of a veil to the game room.
So while you're at the entrance,
you have a little sense of what's beyond into the entertainment room,
but your eye is led to the stairs which lead you to the main level of the house.
The first floor, because of this idea of elevating the primary living space to the second,
was then the residual spaces of saying,
we have guest accommodations down there,
we have actually two bedrooms plus a guest room and a recreation room
that all lead out to the pool and the outdoor environment.
So it's a great indoor-outdoor interaction for those spaces.
Although this house has Western regional materials,
I think the architecture,
I think you could pick this house up and put it in Hermosa Beach or Santa Monica,
and we could tell the same story with you and have it feel like it was appropriate.
We absolutely considered all the indoor-outdoor connectivity that we could.
We used 20-foot wide sliding doors to just kind of open up the house
and let the desert breeze come through.
Later in the day, it starts cooling down on that whole side of the house.
And by evening, it is just an absolute treat to be outdoors in the desert environment.
So it's just quiet.
You've got the full moon sometimes and you're just swimming in a pool.
So all that makes a great connection.
So when you arrive at the top of the stairs,
you have this moment of, again, immediate connection to the outdoors.
It's really the first aha moment.
We also then add a bridge element.
The bridge is somewhat a gesture about privacy
because to the right is the master suite,
to the left is your primary living space.
So the bridge is a little bit like welcome across the bridge.
Now you're in the living space
and it gives us a kind of a visual separation to the master suite.
When you arrive across the upper bridge, you enter the main living space
and that's when you really get a sense of the panorama of the entire second level.
The sun is, for the most part, high enough in the southern sky all year
that you could look due south and not even have the shades down.
And when the sun starts to set at the end of the day,
the house shields Dale and his family from the setting sun
while he's on his outdoor living patio.
So that outdoor living patio, from a solar standpoint, functions all day long.
It's kind of a common theme
where people spend most of their time with their families.
It's in the kitchen in the family room.
And having this connectivity where the table
is right in between those two elements, the kitchen and the family room,
I think really brings it all together.
And I also would like to mention that we put a booth in Dale's house 20 plus years ago
so Dale is a diner guy.
Dale is a booth guy.
I'm a little booth crazed because it's the comfortable place when people come over,
people just start gravitating.
It's like, have a seat.
And next thing you know, you're having a drink there and just enjoying great conversation.
The advantages of the social engagement within all spaces
is absolutely afforded by an open floor plan.
So as you walk from the primary living space of the living, dining and kitchen,
you then evolve back into the smaller, more private spaces of a private office.
My wife works here all day long,
so you have an enjoyable space to connect to the living
that you have to do your work every day.
So same thing, there's panoramic views from the office of the mountains
and that just is refreshing every part of the day
because it's just constantly changing and evolving.
When you get to the top of the stairs,
you have this divide between the major living space
and what is the private sanctuary of a master suite.
And I wanted it to feel like a sanctuary,
meaning you walk in and you feel, again, an instant calm
just because of the colors and the materials.
And you still get this vista that you get to enjoy waking up or going to sleep at night.
We walk through a dressing room,
so there's kind of this fluid motion of getting up in the morning,
walking in, grabbing what you need to dress,
going into a spa-like environment.
And that was really just materials again,
the soft etched glass,
the richness of the macassar ebony cabinets,
and the kind of spa wood deck underneath the tub.
So you get this feeling of calmness in the bath areas
and you go from bathing to dressing to on about your day.
This house is a good example of a very, very low maintenance house.
This particular house with the metal siding
in the fully synthetic exterior stucco system and the deep passive solar,
it's built with as much low maintenance in mind as possible.
I just find people come in from all different backgrounds
with all different preconceptions of what they like,
but they walk away thinking, I could live here.
