A Rancho Mirage home is in tune with its location and its architect-owners' passions

In the California desert, where the light moves with intention and silence holds shape, architect Steven Harris and his longtime collaborator – and husband – designer Lucien Rees Roberts have built a home. Set within Rancho Mirage, Tamarisk House is a meditation on presence, one meant to be shared with friends. The surrounding landscape, both magical and precise, is home to some of America’s most iconic mid-century modern and contemporary architectural works.

Inside Steven Harris and Lucien Rees Roberts' home in Rancho Mirage

Their residence, sited on the Tamarisk Golf Club, is the second that the couple has designed in the area. The first – an elegant villa just next door – now serves as a guest house. The new structure, co-designed by the pair, reflects a deep sense of clarity and intimacy, with space carved not only for light and air, but also for Harris’s passion for cars: a collection housed with as much care as the architecture itself.

In sharing the information on this home, it is important to note the centrality of the landscape, which the owners tell us influenced much of the architectural design. For instance, most homes in the area have been built with few windows on the street side to ensure privacy and seclusion. Tamarisk House maintains that design choice on the street side, while the rear features large windows to capture light and mountain views.

Upon entering from the carport area, for instance, you are greeted by a striking long mural by artist Nick Perkins, and on that wall, facing away from the street, are clerestory windows, providing ample natural light. The entrance area is adorned with vintage jacaranda wood panels for Brazil, which were created in the 1960s. Additional jacaranda wood was also salvaged to fashion the living room’s coffee table. Once past the entry, and just down a few steps, an expansive living room opens onto a direct view of the surrounding mountains.

Surveying the space, it is clear that the designers strove to create a look of seamlessness between the interior and the landscape. 'On the side toward the golf course, there's an attempt to make the space inside and outside as continuous as possible. The floor is Roman travertine. As it moves outside, it is also Roman travertine, and they're at the same level,' says Harris. The 'inordinately large pieces of glass; each pane is about three meters by six meters,' also facilitates a feeling of continuity between indoors and out.

Yet the full design of the property transcends the building’s structure: the property’s landscaping, designed by David Kelly, is also consistent in its topography, plantings and overall look and feel with that of the golf course, once again, enabling direct visual connection to the surroundings. One would assume, with all that soaring glass, it would invite the prying eyes of golfers, but privacy is afforded by strategically placed berms that obscure the house from the direct view of passersby also effectively make it seem like there are no other homes around, which also, cleverly, enabled the couple to avoid installing tall hedges or obtrusive fencing.

Returning to the interior, the seating choices reflect a design aesthetic that is unapologetically modern, such as the Danish slung chair from the 1970s, but also practical, comfortable and approachable. 'The idea was sort of a casual elegance where we could feel comfortable,' Rees Roberts shares. The idea of balancing haute design with approachability is important to the couple. 'On the right, in the ceiling by the curtains, is where there's a screen that drops down from the ceiling, and we project movies on it. So this sofa and the sofa right in front of the viewpoint here are where we can sit with friends and watch movies.'

The home does indeed perfectly blend unique vintage and contemporary elements in a way that is both practical and comfortable while still being striking due to the art pieces and high-end natural materials. 'It was initially a little unnerving to me that when some people came to the house, one of their questions was who the architect was, and when was this built? They presumed it was an old house. At first, I was a little taken aback, but thinking about it, I decided I liked that. I liked the fact that you couldn't date it. That it didn't have, uh, it wasn't a diva house, in other words, uh, it sort of looked like it had always been there,' Harris says. 'It takes a lot of work to make something look effortless. And I think the house is a bit effortless looking, and not contrived or complicated unnecessarily.'