Project: Meadow House
Architects: Malcom Davis Architecture
Location: Sea Ranch, Sonoma County, California, USA
Area: 2,690 sq ft
Photographs by: Courtesy of Malcom Davis Architecture
Malcom Davis Architecture have designed the Meadow House in Sea Ranch, California for a well-traveled couple who were on the lookout for an alternative to their small city apartment. One of their wishes was for the house to be able to accommodate their large book collection and the plentiful artifacts that they have gathered from around the world.
To satisfy their needs, the architects have put together a plan to use angled wooden volumes broken by giant windows that open up to shining ocean view panoramas.
The Meadow House is a house we love because it provides a calm, comfortable, and restorative sanctuary from the often chaotic lives of a scientist/ statistician and an avid bird enthusiast.
They commissioned the home as the fulfillment of a dream. The well-traveled couple wanted a calm place to read and write, in a reflective, inspiring coastal setting. An inviting courtyard separates the main living spaces from a two-story volume that houses sleeping and bathing quarters.
The massing creates a sheltered outdoor space and focal point, blocking both coastal winds and neighbors. Indoor and outdoor connections are emphasized by the continuous use of stone from the front walk through the house and out to the central courtyard.
The plan is open and informal, with warm interiors and generous windows framing the ocean and forested ridge. The material palette draws from these views. The polished concrete floors are cast with local beach sand, and the fir used throughout was locally harvested.
Being in the main living space is to dwell “in the meadow”—able to observe the birds and native plants close at hand, a perfect counterpoint to the couple’s hi-rise apartment in San Francisco.
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