A Hilltop Home Overlooking Silicon Valley Splits Around a Magnificent Blue Oak
A sun-filled home brings a suburban California site closer to its untamed roots.
A sun-filled home brings a suburban California site closer to its untamed roots.
At night a full-throated chorus of frogs lulls Krista and Ian Johnson to sleep in their Los Altos, California, bedroom, and at dawn they’re greeted by a symphony of birdsong—interrupted by an occasional off-key quack. For the couple, being immersed in the sights and sounds of nature is a radical corrective to their high-paced jobs in the tech industry—one that their previous home never quite provided.
On a lot studded with old-growth oaks and redwoods and crossed by a creek, Ian and Krista Johnson asked Field Architecture to design a house that would defer to its natural surroundings. Says Krista, "We needed to know that whatever we built would not take away from the landscape."
Photo: Joe Fletcher
Sitting atop a nearby hill with killer views of Silicon Valley, it had seemed perfect when they purchased it. "But in reality," says Ian, "being up higher than the trees meant we had no protection from the blazing sun. We rarely went outside, never opened the blinds, and felt totally cut off from the natural world." Avid hikers and campers, they vowed to do things differently should they ever build their own home.
"When we bought the property, the sale disclosures included a line stating that a pair of ducks have nested here every year for fourteen years," says Ian. "We see them every spring."
Photo: Joe Fletcher
They found kindred spirits in father-son architects Stan and Jess Field, whose experiences in their native South Africa (where among other projects they created plans for a wilderness center) have come to define their firm’s land-first approach to architecture. The designers say nurturing and restoring a site’s ecology dictates what they build and where it is placed. When Ian and Krista spotted a grassy, one-acre parcel that they felt had potential, they invited the architects to weigh in before making a bid.
The home opens into the kitchen, which features a blackened steel pendant by the architects and De Haro counter stools by Fyrn. Concreteworks countertops, a Wolf range, Kallista sink, and Boffi faucet also fill the space.
Photo: Joe Fletcher
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