A new hilltop California home is rooted in the landscape and celebrates views of nature

High up in the Los Altos Hills, this new California home by WOJR offers far-reaching views of the San Francisco Bay. Built atop the foundations for a ‘Spanish style’ house, the finished design by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based architects, is anything but traditional. Dubbed the House of Horns, the 8,500 square foot residence is arranged across two floors but features a myriad of interlocking spaces, with architectural elements that reach out into the landscape.

Tour this unusual California home

House of Horns might conjure up something akin to a ranch, but the horns in question are influenced by musical instruments, not cattle. According to the architects, the house was intended to be ‘an assemblage of instruments tuned to capture the cycles of the day, and of the seasons - the changing light, the growth, decay, and growth of the foggy Bay landscape.’

The lower level is set deep into the hillside, thanks to substantial new excavations that give the structure the appearance of a single storey house. This level extends out into the landscape with three distinctive circular chambers that offer viewpoints and framing devices for the world beyond, shaping both the landscape and the sky.

These courtyard spaces are countersunk into the slope of the garden, marked out by swirling ribbons of railings. The courtyards create forms that are mirrored in the skylights and design elements scattered throughout the main house. These range from the elliptical roof vaults on the first floor, which curve upwards above the principal living spaces to scoop light from a series of high-level windows and roof-lights, to the dense physicality of sculptural stone elements found throughout the house.

The first floor is essential a large open plan living and dining area, with variations in the space created by the varying topography of the roof. From outside, this gives the house a distinct roofline and fenestration. Here you’ll also find the main entrance, with the living area punctuated by large windows onto the newly landscaped garden, bracketed by bedrooms.

On one side, are two identical ensuites, with the primary bedroom at the other end of the house, In addition to a generous closet, there’s also a palatial marble-lined bathroom, with a substantial tub carved from a dark seam of the stone.

Large marble elements are a key feature of the property, from the ovoid, menhir-like column in the ground floor pool space, to the fireplace that marks the centre point of the house. Carved from blocks of Danby marble from Vermont, the architects describe these elements as ‘projects within a project.’

Alongside the pool, the ground floor also houses a bedroom and office that share an external circular courtyard, as well as utility spaces and a media room. Bespoke furniture was made for the project by Kylle Sebree Studio, with a kitchen supplied by Henrybuilt. Quarra Stone provided the stone objects, with the bathroom terrazzo and stone provided by Marvelous Marble Design.

Of particular interest is the restoration of the surrounding gardens. Working with horticultural Jeff Kunkel of Greenstar, the landscape has been meticulously returned to a wild state, albeit one that’s been carefully curated to blend with the forms and masses of the house, the views from the windows and the vegetation surrounding the courtyards. ‘like the house, the landscape has many layers... It acts with the house as a synthetic whole, a precisely tuned instrument to experience the world around,’ says the architects.

WOJR.org