OPENING UP – YOUR HOME

OPENING UP – YOUR HOME The Fall House: The craggy headlands of Big Sur are so spectacular that if you lived here, you’d not want to block anything out, nor would you want to damage the environment. This was the starting point for the award-winning Fall House (above) that carefully hugs the edge of a precipice – with a sheer drop into the Pacific 76 metres below. The glass-wrapped home takes in every nuance of the changing sky and sea, but viewed from the road above you’d barely know the house was there. The stepped design includes natural ventilation; careful glazing to maximise light but reduce heat retention; sustainable wood; and a central, double-volume den that breaks open the roof so that daylight floods in from the top and the sides. Here, you feel like you’re on your own island, with only the whales and Californian condors for company. 18

EVOQUE CONVERTIBLE The Caterpillar House: Raisin, a wire-haired scrap of a dog, has perfected a look of utter misery. It’s made complete by a shiver she employs as soon as she’s on a lap. Any concern is misplaced. She lives a charmed life in Carmel’s Santa Clara Hotel Preserve with her dot owner whose eye for elegant design and desire for a sustainable, eco-conscious home resulted in the Cliff May-inspired Caterpillar House (below). It’s won numerous awards for its conscientious design and build, including the first LEED Platinum certification for a custom home in the area. Excavated earth was used for the curved rammed walls and all the lighting points downwards to prevent light pollution. But most spectacular is the absolute calm you feel as you watch the day come to life from the open living area. The morning silence is broken by the calls of songbirds and the sunrise grows to reveal undulating hills around you. You see no one and Raisin, replete from her gourmet breakfast, forgets to shiver. 19