On a dusty desert highway in Twentynine Palms, bordering the iconic Joshua Tree National Park in California, Homestead Modern unveils a new home, Morning Dove, which is now available for private rentals. The brand has built a reputation for offering exclusive, design-centric accommodations in the Yucca Valley, atypical rental properties for unique getaways, of which past examples include Landing House. Designed by architect and builder Beau Campbell and his wife, interior designer Tracey Stehle-Cavaniola, Morning Dove sits on 20 acres of private land and is a model of 21st-century desert architecture.
Explore Morning Dove in Twentynine Palms
On the property, you will find two structures – a main house, and a guest house, both featuring rammed-earth construction, the ancient building method that blends sustainable architecture with a wildly distinctive look and feel.
'Rammed earth uses a combination of native materials, a binding agent and colourant to mix into the material by batch to achieve the layered look,' explains Tracey Cavaniola. 'In our case, we took the soil from our property, which we realised is mostly granite, screened it to get the consistency we wanted – a rougher, rustic look – and mixed it with specific-coloured mortars.'
The mixture is then poured into forms and compacted by a tamper. Once the first layer is completed, the forms are moved, and the process is repeated. 'It is an ancient construction method in Europe, New Zealand, Africa, and drier climates. In the past ten years, it has gained momentum in the US and Canada.'
Other striking touches to the property include Earthaus Plaster for a natural mineral finish; custom solid Knotty Alder wood doors sourced from Sun Mountain in Colorado; and recessed lighting from TECH lighting. In the bathrooms, concrete tubs are by Native Trails, the shower tiles are from Porcelanosa, and the powder-room raised vessel sink is from Gem Look Design. The kitchen and vanities are from Reform, designed by world-renowned Norm Architects.
While Twentynine Palms has evolved into an area where a lot of people have renovated single-family homes on plots which were often subdivided into smaller lots, Cavaniola explained that these homes were due to the government's post-Second World War programme to assist veterans coming back to the states with housing and jobs. 'Although renovations have a positive story as well, we decided to buy land instead of digging into a renovation project.'
When Campbell and Cavaniola acquired the land, they deeply invested how to build a home that did not abuse the land or deplete the ethereal surrounding landscape but instead preserved the abundant open space and highlighted a sense of place, which was the duo's primary inspiration. 'It is hard not to be inspired by the colours and textures of the ever-changing desert, even during different times of the day,' adds Cavaniola.
'We knew that we did not want to build a modern home that only put on a facade of belonging, as so many do,' says Cavaniola. 'We were very lucky the property provided us with a composition of earth that allowed us to fulfil the inspiration meticulously.'
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