Once a summer cabin, this house became a spacious and thoroughly comfortable year-around home with the addition of a spacious living room on stilts.
The owner's first idea was to add a room on the downhill side, at the existing floor level. However, the architect realized that this would diminish a marvelous view of the valley below. So he designed a more economical addition, taking its level from the existing basement footings. Set down among the treetops the new living room exploits downward, outward, and upward views (of valley, bay, and mountains), which seem greater in depth because of foreground trees.
While the building is a remodeled one, it is an excellent example of the freedom to be gained through use of platform construction on precipitous sites. The addition required little grading; it allowed the house to break free of the contour in order to make better use of views, and careful design of understructures produced an appearance from below that is graceful and free of unsightly utility pipes and the like.
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