A Secluded Perch

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Completed in 2018, this house set in the coastal hills high above San Jose was built on the site of a home that had burned down a few years previously, leaving a flat pad and a scarred site. The new owners, working with Feldman Architecture, sought not to build a house that sat gently on the site, floating above the wide-ranging view, but to heal the site as well.

Although almost invisible from the street, the house is anchored by two massive stucco wings, with the central element, a glass-walled pavilion enclosing the living/dining/kitchen just beyond the entry, accessed up a broad, short flight of stairs from the driveway. The low wing to the left of the entry contains the bedrooms. The garage has been placed mostly underneath, at the base of the three-level stucco tower containing a double-height family room and office loft.

Project Name: The Pavilion

The Team: Jess Stuenkel and Bridgett Shank led the design team for Feldman Architecture; structural engineering by FTF Engineering; landscape design by Arterra Landscape Architecture; Groza Construction, general contractor.

What We Love: This is California Minimalism at its best, both in the exceptional detailing and the open connection to the landscape. There’s also nothing extraneous here, and while it was clearly a costly project, the house can claim a sense of essential moderation and ‘rightness’ that recalls the work of William Wurster and Louis Kahn. Below, a detail of the project’s beautifully finished structural steel.

Photo Credit: Joe Fletcher ©2020