There is a presumption that high-end custom homes, particularly those that are more architecturally evolved, are built and finished strictly with top-shelf materials and systems. However, inexpensive, utilitarian materials handled in unexpected ways not only can save money, they can introduce a fresh and interesting take...
Two years after moving into their custom-built home, a family awoke in the wee hours of March 25, 2014, to the sound of every homeowner’s worst nightmare—the ear-piercing, intermittent screech of a smoke detector. “My wife got our son out of the house, and I found...
The evolution of the green building industry has slowly but surely moved far away from the iconic aesthetic that helped bring it mainstream awareness—thick-walled, straw-bale houses, racks of solar panels propped awkwardly on roof tops, the occasional rainwater barrel—and it has become impossible to recognize...
Environmental sculptor Andy Goldsworthy said snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood. The burn of a freezing snowball in a bare hand or the mesmerizing dazzle of wind-driven flakes can open a memory window back to the 9-year-old self. For Oakland resident...
The measure of success in modern architecture resides in what is unseen. Concrete footings the size of a travel trailer allowing the most impossible cantilever to create surreal outdoor living, for example. Or, the remarkable efforts of 22 guys, shuffling four inches at a...
It was late 2014 when Clare Walton, principal architect at Tahoe City’s Walton Architecture + Engineering, first walked the Martis Camp property. The snow glistened as she charted the trees and view lines across the length of the site. “I immediately had a sense...
In late summer of 2012, Don Fulda of Truckee’s Ward-Young Architecture & Planning got a call from a local realtor who had clients checking out Martis Camp lot 546. The clients, who wish to remain anonymous, wanted to be sure the steeply sloped site, almost...
Alps style meets a Tahoe retreat It would be the perfect birthday present. That’s what the Atherton, California–based owner thought when viewing the in-progress spec home at Martis Camp. She and her husband had been looking for a second home at mountain locations like Deer Valley,...
Rubicon Bay home transformed into modern lakefront retreat Aristotle may not have had home design in mind when he surmised the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But, for Truckee contractor Craig Lindsay, the tenet is well represented in the minute details of...
During the initial phase of this Martis Camp project, the owners wanted nothing more than a durable second home that catered to their family’s active lifestyle. But as the project evolved, so, too, did their tastes and desires. “We started off more on the...