A new Martis Camp residence takes full advantage of its prime site along two scenic fairways

Some homes are like championship fairways, in that the details come into full relief only after some time and firsthand experience of the rooms. Citing the game of golf is an apt metaphor for this new Martis Camp home, since it is sited beside two expansive holes on the community’s Tom Fazio–designed course. Akin to standing at the tees on the fourth and fifth fairways, both of which are within chipping distance of the residence, the full scale and shape of the house, its architectural styles and its many nuances reveal themselves slowly.

“This is a unique site, even in Martis Camp,” says Joe Lamperti, president of his namesake building firm, which has constructed some 40 homes in the exclusive private community. “Two golf holes are visible from three sides of house, and the triangular-like site we built on follows the shape of the holes, to some extent.”   

Architect Clare Walton describes her design as “a house with a clean vocabulary organized by three dominant gable forms.”

Indeed, these two particular holes are highly detailed stretches of greenery, with subtle turns on the land, hidden greens, sculptural bunkers and strategically placed trees provided by nature and the course’s designer.  

As the architect of the house—and the designer of numerous residences in Martis Camp—Clare Walton describes her design as “a house with a clean vocabulary organized by three dominant gable forms.” To further distinguish the house, Walton juxtaposed vertical with horizontal cladding and configured the gable ends in such a way that they create shadow lines, which in turn break up the two-story wall plane; this both anchors the house to its site and creates an extra dynamic visual element. 

After the house was complete, interior designer Diana Vincent, founder of Truckee’s High Camp Home, assessed the resulting volumes and their relation to the site. 

“There’s so much nature to take in from inside the house, so many soft lines,” Vincent says. “There are the fairways, the slopes of the Northstar ski resort in the distance and the sheer drama of the materials used—such as the local stone that’s been dry-stacked, and a pond that drops into a waterfall feature.” 

The clients (who had been living in a different Martis Camp home) were smitten with Walton’s spec-designed house. But just as construction was to begin, the owners asked Walton to make some adjustments to the design that included enlarging the media room and expanding the water feature that makes the house appear to be an island from certain vantages. Although the media room was already in Walton’s original plans, the expansion created an even more defined sense of place within the building envelope and allowed for a moody getaway featuring a full bar and a wall of iron-forged hooks for holding bottles of wine that Vincent’s team choreographed. 

According to Vincent, the homeowner wife “was really in love with the whole mountain farmhouse look, which is so popular in the region. But she also wanted a house that would be more timeless, have it reflect a style more transitional and enduring.” 

Views abound from the great room, where a 30-foot-long, 12 1/2-foot-high Andersen multi-panel pocketing door blurs the line between inside and out

The resulting dwelling, with Walton’s, Lamperti’s and Vincent’s work, is a cohesive amalgam of styles, at once vernacular but also wholly original, with multiple architectural forms combined. Upon arrival, the house presents itself as a transparent entity, in that it can be completely seen through, while other elements appear as windowless solid forms. The interplay of geometries is immediately intriguing. 

“The home has a transparency to it, which is a consistent theme in our work, and the special way the home relates to its setting makes it feel grounded and timeless in style,” says Walton. 

After the house was completed, Vincent says the owners wanted the interiors to be as “bright and sunny as possible.” While great rooms are common features in Martis Camp, this version is special not only for its views, but also for the giant scale of a doorway/wall that opens to the site and brings in natural light. 

“It’s common to have a big door like this; probably 90 percent of the houses here have doors that function like this,” Lamperti says of the Andersen multi-panel pocketing door system. “But it’s very rare to have a door this size—30 feet long and more than 12 ½ feet high.” 

When the glass wall is retracted, it’s difficult to discern the moment the outdoors begin and the indoors end. Given the expanses of windows and the house’s siting, the indoor living spaces are sometimes sunnier than those on the terraces and the pool/pond that envelops the back of the house like a shallow castle moat. 

“Yes, it’s a large space,” Vincent says of the great room, “but it’s also intimate and inviting, a refuge.” 

A free-standing tub in the primary bathroom overlooks the water feature and golf course beyond

She positioned seating areas to focus on the interior fireplace and to take in the full scope of the site, which includes a gas fire pit and a series of carefully articulated low-rising stone walls by Johansen Masonry, every rock hand-selected and assembled for a harmonious effect. The stones used outside are echoed inside on the fireplace chimney.  

The primary suite, situated in a wing apart from the other four bedrooms (which are on the opposite end of the house and divided between two floors), remains bright by day and assumes a cocoon-like feel at night. 

“My design style falls more to the masculine than the feminine,” says Vincent, “I’m not much for fluff and poof in the bedroom,” an important consideration when devising a primary suite for a husband and wife. “By using light tones and sandy hues, with a minimum of accessories, the room is a nod to both aspects of feminine and masculine.” 

The primary bath is its own design statement, related certainly to the bedroom, but also a space that feels even more rooted to the land. When bathing in a freestanding tub, positioned at a windowed corner, the occupant might feel as if he or she is floating, boat-like, in the pool/pond just beyond the glass.  

For the media/bar room, the husband wanted a space integral to the house, but one that reflected his penchant for a darker, more decidedly masculine feel. A deeper-shade grade of reclaimed wood is used on the ceilings and walls, while dark tiles clad the chimney and portions of the bar, at which are barstools upholstered in a hair-on-hide. 

“While it’s a space the husband really wanted, it’s really an area for the couple to spend time in together, and where they often host friends,” says Vincent. “It’s a real mixture of textural tile work, masculine fabrics and finishes, and reclaimed wood. It’s a warm room.”   

The media/bar room features reclaimed wood and dark, masculine fabrics that provide a warm feel

“The husband’s room is unique,” adds Lamperti, “not only for the wine cellar we built, but also for the custom steel doors with full-lite glass panes that conceal it. Of all the rooms, the media room was especially significantly altered from the original plans—to make it bigger, have more functions and be a more prominent, special room in the house.”  

Like complicated but thoroughly playable fairways, other parts of the house reveal their attributes as you move through them. Separate girl and boy bunk rooms tempt even adults for a night’s sleep. Vincent designed the beds, cleverly separating pairs of them with an intimate, recessed bench seating area, perfect for reading (or, given the age of its users, checking their phones). 

Because High Camp Home is an “interior architecture firm,” she and her team do everything “right up to the interior architecture,” and in many cases, as was the situation here, choose not only the furnishings and interior finishes, but even the cutlery that goes into drawers and the sheets that dress beds.  

“You choose items that establish mood and tone and then you use some filler items to complete the look,” says Vincent. “It’s what also might be called curating the design of a home.”

David Masello is the New York–based executive editor of Milieu, a national print magazine about interior design and architecture.