A quiet retreat for an empty-nest couple seeking a more essential lifestyle, this home offers the best of what they need in a compact and efficient, but well-articulated and rich, architectural experience.

An undulating roof above the living spaces of the great room and makes the most of the allowable heights above grade.

The primary living spaces: the kitchen, dining, and master bedroom, are all located upstairs where the couple spends most of their time.

The resulting compact footprint makes the most use of the limited space available and invites opportunities for rooms to borrow space from each other, lending an air of spaciousness to the otherwise compact design.

Orienting the home on the generously sized lot was influenced by a number of factors: the steep topography, a restrictive height limit, and an easement  that bisected the lot close to the street.

At once both solid and transparent, the home is outwardly quiet, while offering innovative spatial relationships that create rich and varied living experiences inside.

A generous skylight above the stairs and glass entry bridge illuminates the lower floor which offers extra bedrooms for family visits, and access to the lap pool which sits beyond the easement bisecting the lot.

Essential and reductive, this house is a composition for modern living where light, concrete, and wood are the primary building materials and each resonate throughout the spaces in measured proportion.

Overlooking the Coast Highway and Newport Harbor below, this small house on Kings Road sits low and sheltered from the street while embracing the views of the bay and Pacific horizon beyond.