Our client, Nancy Barlet, a San Francisco resident, came to us with an unbelievably open sense of what she wanted for her vacation house. The only requirement was that the roofline "not have any of those peaky things." After further discussion, we realized that "peaky things" meant gable roof peaks and ridges. She did like curves, however, with the belief that a softer structure would better fit into the landscape. It turns out that Nancy was born and grew up in Levittown, and her imparted mission to us was to get as far away from THAT architectural legacy as possible.

The opportunity to curve the geometry of the house gave us the ability to sculpt the residence so as to create an exterior form "of the hillside." The vertical proportion of the windows evokes the adjacent trees and allows filtered sunlight to penetrate through to the living areas; at times it feels like being in a tree house.

Nancy wanted an open living/dining/kitchen area. She also wanted a master bedroom suite on the main living level of the house, for her own private domain. The three downstairs bedrooms are for house guests and are typically nearly full with relatives and friends when she stays at the house several times a year. During the design process Nancy's sister, a local resident who attended several design meetings, jokingly referred to the basement bedrooms as the "steerage cabins." With the two levels and with the basement bedrooms each opening via french doors directly to the lake, Nancy and her extended family can happily co-exist in the house for lengthy stays.