Hillside Modern

CONTEMPORARY LIVING WITH A VIEW

A couple of years ago, our client came to us to help them conceive a small, sustainable, modern, yet comfortable custom home to be built on a beautiful and picturesque hillside lot. After working through the final design, our client was asked by his employer to take on a two-year project in Europe. As a result, the start of construction was understandably delayed so that the home would not sit empty for a prolonged period of time after its completion. So we eventually broke ground about a year later, and interestingly enough, we completed the home just before their arrival back in the States without the client having ever seen the home in person throughout the entire construction process. Thankfully, our client was ecstatic about their new home, and genuinely excited to begin the next chapter of their lives back in the U.S. generating firm roots and family memories in the years to come.

Inspired by the modern aesthetic, the layout of this home was predicated on the gorgeous distant views beyond. Virtually every room in the home has an unobstructed sightline to these views, including the expansive first floor deck and cantilevered Master Balcony. A rich blend of reddish-orange cedar planks, gray corrugated metal, and carefully apportioned black details (windows, doors, gutters, downspouts, etc.) help the home stand proud of the mature countryside on its distinguished hillside perch. Furthermore, with its deep overhangs stretching outward toward the nearby landscape, form truly meets function as much of the largely undesirable direct sunlight is well managed in the summer months while still allowing desirable solar heat gain in the winter months.

Some additional sustainable home features are listed below:

• Ultra-tight building envelope to minimize air infiltration/exfiltration.
• Highly insulated (formaldehyde-free) thermal envelope – R-52 ceiling, R-26 framed walls, R-31 basement walls, R-10 underslab.
• Energy-efficient doors and windows – 0.21 – 0.29 U-factor.
• Advanced HVAC system – SEER 17, HSPF 9.5 air-source heat pump with an efficient Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) and well-sealed, insulated ducts.
• LED lighting throughout – 9.5 watts (compared to 75 watts) each & dimmable down to 10%.
• Energy Star Qualified exhaust fans & appliances – refrigerator, dishwasher, clothes washer.
• Whole-house, industry-leading air cleaner integrated with the HVAC system.
• Zero-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints throughout.
• Hard surfaces throughout including regionally-harvested oak flooring and eco-conscious tile.
• Roof designed to pitch toward the south for possible installation of future solar.

To help deliver a successful project that our client would fall in love with and be proud to call home, we knew that it would be critical to not only craft a quality home ‘in the flesh’, but also help them feel as integrated into the construction process as possible despite their obvious disconnection from across a vast ocean. Therefore, we launched a special online website where we would deposit effectual photographs of the home (often daily); which also served to aid in the client’s important decision making processes along the way. In the end, we can honestly share that the process of building our client’s home was quite collaborative, virtually seamless, and without question, very enjoyable!