This home was designed to enhance and become a part of the existing sense of place that this site exhibited and to become a part of the shady grove of cottonwoods, elms, and spruces that are a part of this site. The home bends and opens up to vistas overlooking the site and adjacent Boulder Creek open space. Utilizing a series of limestone walls that bend around the grove, the design creates spaces between them. The spaces are covered with metal roofs that float over the stone walls enclosed by glass, screen, wood, and stucco. It is a pallet of materials assembled in a contemporary manner but building upon lessons taken from the local vernacular.

These lessons include how a building responds to the sun, how it welcomes the cooling summer breeze but shelters from the cold winter wind, and how it partners with the existing landscape. Upon entering into the court guests are surrounded by a grove of trees and discover meandering forms; arriving to the trellised porch into a low entry space that orients guests to the blue spruce to the east and the shady screen porch overlooking the back yard to the west. The dining, kitchen and living wings bend around to allow the kitchen to function as the heart of the house, the dining room as an extension of the back yard, and the living room to peer out over the open vistas and cliffs along Boulder creek. Finally, the bedroom wing starts with the family room off of the kitchen and bends back to create the kids’ rooms and a secluded master suite off the end.

*Completed while Andrew Moss was principal and lead architect with Semple Brown Design