Fall House Luxury Residence – Cabrillo Hwy, Big Sur, CA, USA 🇺🇸

Name: Fall House
Type: Modern Contemporary
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 4
Size: 3,800 sq. ft.
Built: 2014

Located on a spectacular site in the south Coast of Big Sur, the spectacular Fall House pays homage to the natural beauty and power of this California landscape. The overall design strategy is one of imbedding the building in the land, creating a structure that is inseparable from its context. The design reinterprets the organic architectural vocabulary of Big Sur houses built in the 50’s and 60’s.

The main portion of this luxury residence is at the top of the site, with the living spaces unfolding from the most public to the most private spaces below. The living room kitchen and dining room are an open plan with subtle changes in levels and roof planes to differentiate the various functions. The lower volume is the master bedroom suite with a double cantilever over the bluff and the ground; it is a promontory above the ocean that captures the spectacular views with its floor to ceiling windows. The link between these two volumes is the glass library/den; it is the hearth of the house, a room that unites the house inside and out both with its geometry and its transparency.

The site offers plunging views a 250’ foot drop to the Pacific Ocean both along the bluff and the western exposure. The house was designed as a long thin volume that both conforms and deforms to the natural contours of the land and the geometries of the bluff. The main body of the structure is composed of two rectangular boxes connected by an all glass room; a one-story concrete wing placed perpendicular to the house includes bedrooms on the ground floor and a green roof. The house is cantilevered over the land 12’ feet back from the bluff’s edge, both to protect the delicate eco system of the cliff and to ensure the integrity and safety of the structure.

The design celebrates the views without making the house one big picture window. The interior is a shelter, anchored in the natural beauty and power of this California landscape, a quiet contemplative space where one can escape the roughness and immense scale of the ocean and cliff.