Rent this dream desert house in Joshua Tree shaped by an LA-based artist and musician

For a true design-in-the-desert experience, Casamia is a new contemporary house providing stylish remote retreats. Designed by the artist and musician Giancarlo Rondani, the custom desert house is located in Joshua Tree, California. Rondani, who has Brazilian, Peruvian, and Italian ancestry, usually works in motion graphics and 3D design. The Casamia project arose out of his own interest in architecture and is his first major built project.

‘I started experimenting on my own home [in Los Angeles], rethinking the interior layout and redesigning the whole backyard,’ the designer says, ‘Because my everyday tools are Cinema 4D and Photoshop, I used them to model and visualize everything first, almost as a way to prove the ideas to myself before committing to construction.’

From here, Rondani gained the confidence to translate his ideas in a full-scale new build project. ‘The desert has always been my place to reset from LA, and Joshua Tree in particular has a special energy,’ he says. The search for a suitable plot took place during Covid. ‘It took nearly a year to find the right piece of land,’ Rondani recalls, ‘it was completely raw with no utilities, water, or power.’

Casamia has taken three years to come together, guided by Rondani’s visualisation skills. ‘I used the same tools I work with every day to design the house,’ he says, ‘I built the entire project digitally first, studying the sun path, light behaviour, and wind direction and even how the desert would interact with the architecture before anything was constructed.’

The end result is a classically elegant modern villa, a structure that hugs low to the ground and directly interfaces with the desert terrain via careful landscaping. Part Case Study House, part Palm Springs modern, with a touch of minimalist sculpture, the black clad house celebrates the play of sunlight across the façade, changing patterns of light and straightforward construction materials.

‘Once we secured the land, the design and construction process unfolded over more than three years, from concept and sun path studies to the final build,’ says Rondani, ‘the process shaped the final form and the very minimal warm aesthetic you will see in the images.’

Arranged as two pavilions flanking a pool and firepit, Casamia features a main bedroom, two auxiliary bedrooms and large open-plan kitchen/diner. Covered walkways and terraces surround the structure to shade the sun and minimise the built footprint. Reservations are open now.

Book the house via CasamiaResort.com and also via Airbnb Luxe