When building a house on a gorgeous desert hillside, you have some significant website planning and technology to think about. When designing a house nestled into the side of a rocky hill outside Phoenix, architects Jon Bernhard and Mike Wetzel of Swabuck Partners knew they had to bring in the engineers and the big trucks — large trucks filled with massive boulders. The boulders assured that the hillside was stable and kept its natural beauty, and they enhanced the way the house and its built landscape related to the spectacular surroundings.
The architects have been”guided by the owners’ appreciation for outdoor living as well as the qualities the native desert offers,” says Bernhard. Single-slope, computer-engineered roofs accompany the slope of the hillside. “The deep roof slopes fit and follow the mountain slope, and cantilevered terraces soften the home’s imprint on the property,” says Bernhard. “This light touch on the website is further symbolized with the usage of desert colors, textures and by blurring the line between the indigenous and the man-made by participating boulders and landscaping within the living spaces.” This included integrating water, which cascades down the hill and appears to continue upon the terrace and out beyond the entrance.
All the interior spaces take full advantage of the natural lighting and surrounding views, and it’s hard to understand where the insides end and the outside begins. Both inside and outside, spaces range from towering and receptive to small and intimate.
Since this house transitions so easily from front to rear, side to side, and inside and outside, it’s only fitting that we will be hopping from outside to inside and back out again along this tour.
at a Glance
Who lives here: A family of five
Location: Outside of Phoenix, Arizona
Size: 19,000 square feet; on about 5 acres; 4 bedrooms, including a guest house with 1 bedroom and one bath
That’s intriguing: Some of those boulders added into the website proved so big that they had been brought in singly on their own trucks.
Swaback Partners, pllc
An axis of water ties the front of the house to the back. A waterfall flows down from the top of the hill, and due to this axis, there is an illusion that it flows beneath the rear patio, is brought through the house and terminates at this fountain.
Swaback Partners, pllc
The single-slope roof structures follow the slope of the hillside, making the house seem to be a part of the hill. The municipality didn’t need a three-story structure, so a garage is cleverly tucked underneath the primary living floor (far left side of this picture ), even though a master suite occupies the upper floor over a different portion of the house (toward the ideal side of this picture ). The construction you find on the far right is another guest house.
“We implemented boulders into the sides of the walls along the drive to make it seem like it was carved out of the hillside,” says Wetzel.
Swaback Partners, pllc
The main entryway is an inviting gem box also makes the most of local materials and light. The entrance door consists of 5-inch-thick mahogany panels floating between layers of laminated glass. A grid of 21 panels of onyx appears to float across the entrance. During the day the sun glows through; backlighting provides a warm and inviting glow at night.
Swaback Partners, pllc
The front door is aligned with an expanse of glass that opens out to the backyard and a view of the hillside. The grid of onyx hovering overhead highlights the axis in the front entrance to rear. The water also highlights the link by the hillside waterfall into the fountain in the front.
Swaback Partners, pllc
An individual can follow the water out of the pool and fountain out front into the pools round the rear entrance and up the hill.
“The hillside was reconstructed to stabilize it,” clarifies Wetzel. This meant that the existing hillside was covered in a geotech mesh for security, and boulders were brought in and proceeded to pay for it. The team engineered the waterfall found previously, which offers soothing sound and brings the eye up to the top of the hill.
Swaback Partners, pllc
Through the front door, a gallery-like hallway leads to the fantastic room.
Swaback Partners, pllc
At the excellent room a grid of Fossil Creek flagstone highlights verticality. “The 24-inch by 24-inch grid lines continue up to the swimming pool and the guest house,” says Wetzel. This is one of those design moves that joins the inside and exterior design.
Swaback Partners, pllc
The towering ceiling in the excellent room articulates the hillside-driven incline of the roof.
Swaback Partners, pllc
“The indoor design and the outdoor architecture each speak for themselves, but they also blend together really well,” notes Wetzel.
Swaback Partners, pllc
The entrance terrace leads from the garage level up into the front door. The guest house is located on the ideal side of this image.
Split-face Mesastone adds purple-haze colors in the mountain into the facade and introduces a different feel. Weathered penny copper adds to the glow overhead.
Swaback Partners, pllc
Pocket doors open the fantastic room up to the entrance terrace. Large cantilevers offer shade from the Arizona sun, keep the house cooler and make terraces. In addition they produce a transitional space that continues to blur the lines between inside and outside.
Swaback Partners, pllc
“Substantial lengths of glass and clerestory windows offer natural daylight during every room in the house,” says Bernhard. “Floor-to-ceiling glass and also the avoidance of finish-material changes at exterior wall lines deliver expansive indoor-outdoor living environments.”
Swaback Partners, pllc
The sheets of glass that you see about that breakfast area are pocket doors, which transform the enclosed room to an al fresco dining space with a few straightforward slides.
Swaback Partners, pllc
The kitchen picks up on a darker desert palette that includes Red Dragon granite and Wingate black cabinetry. Smaller-scale components, like the backsplash tiles, make a more intimate feel.
Swaback Partners, pllc
In a house so receptive to the exterior, solitude is essential. Metal mesh sunglasses provide it in this powder room.
Swaback Partners, pllc
A bedroom opens into a mountain patio and abuts 12-foot by 18-foot boulders. “We placed each of the boulders to look natural and not contrived,” says Wetzel.
Swaback Partners, pllc
Constructed up into the hillside, this bath enjoys a grand view of the boulders.
Swaback Partners, pllc
“Anywhere we can monopolize on integrating the natural light to the inside, we did,” says Wetzel. Case in point: The deficiency of risers on such white oak staircase opens up the view to the large window at the landing.
Swaback Partners, pllc
Upstairs, a sitting room in the master suite gets the top floor its own retreat.
Swaback Partners, pllc
“We altered the grid in the master bath to make it more human scale,” explains Wetzel. The 24-inch by 18-inch limestone highlights horizontal lines, while green slate presents a new substance and cooler colors.
Swaback Partners, pllc
“The master bedroom has a to-die-for view,” says Wetzel. “You seem out to the mountains and will see the city lights in the distance.” To take advantage of this opinion, a motorized 12-foot x 15-foot doorway opens into a private patio that has a fire pit.
Added soft light comes in the Sapele mahogany ceiling coffers.
Swaback Partners, pllc
The view from the top of the hill to the backyard is spectacular. An upper patio with its own fire pit provides an intimate, tucked-away outdoor area and a view of the city lights at night.
Swaback Partners, pllc
The designers made certain that the tint of the patio’s cement matched the landscape.
Swaback Partners, pllc
Well-placed boulders cleverly conceal an outdoor shower, providing solitude yet keeping the open-air feeling.
The job took 20 weeks from begin to finish, including all of the extensive site work. “On a job like this, it’s always scary at the start to see how much has to be done. It is an excellent feeling to receive it right, down to the tiniest details, and execute something outstanding,” says Wetzel.
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