A Hilltop Home Overlooking Silicon Valley Splits Around a Magnificent Blue Oak

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.

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.

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.