Casa Paraíso del Mar

Vacation home built on the slope of a stream. Designed for a couple who live in Kenwood, California, the house was constructed in a record five months’ time on a very tight budget. It has been a most satisfying and rewarding experience, given Susan Smith’s passion and her love of AAA’s design and construction. The project is a forerunner to many concepts that allowed for the design of Casa Dos Hermanas and later projects. Although the property has limited views, the design attained them for all the rooms. Hidden from the rest of the world, the house offers such a play of volumes and visual details that, as the owners themselves assert, people walking on the perimeter roads are invariably drawn to it. Its entrance is conspicuous but spontaneous--large double doors that used to be painted red. The social area, unusually long and wide, is organized around inner and outer courtyards. All rooms have terraces, and the roof of the house is the best of these in terms of size, views, and sunbathing. The bedrooms, although small, offer absolute comfort and privacy. Features minimalist spaces in harmony with the place and climate, functionally organized in a scheme of inner and outer courtyards. It has strictly essential furnishings and uses materials that make it a comfortable and practical leisure home: plastered walls with sand-colored, sponged vinyl paint, bright accents on the bed niches and headboards, floors of travertine marble and washed sand with river stone accents, pine woodwork with bamboo shelves, aluminum window structures.