A Cedar-Clad Home Catches Sea Breezes and California Sunshine

A young family knew what they wanted when they set out to build a new home in the seaside city of Encinitas, California: views of the Pacific (but privacy from the street), ample guest rooms (with a separate entrance) for long-term family visits, and a strong relationship with the site, a rocky slope overlooking the ocean. In other words, they wanted an interplay of opposites: open and concealed, integrated and discrete, airy and grounded.

How to resolve those tensions? They started with the site. The homeowners were fans of a contemporary, cedar-clad home down the street, so they hired its architect, Brett Farrow, to contend with the ups and downs of their lot. And it didn’t take him long to view the dusty pitch as an asset. Rather than grading the site, Farrow carved it into five terraces that step down from the street toward views of the ocean at the rear of the lot.

He set the house, a cluster of boxes wrapped in wood and glass, toward the middle of the site, which partially conceals the entry from the street. From there, you step down into living spaces set a bit further down the hill to give them great views of the ocean—with the master bedroom taking pride of place all the way at the back. "There are long lines of sight that turn mundane circulation elements like hallways into visual experiences," says Farrow. "I like to have surprises in the movement through a home."