The natural site was altered very little for this house in Oswego Skylands, 10 miles south of Portland. The house nestles just below the brow of a wooded knoll, at the feet of stately Douglas firs, and almost every room has a magnificent view of the Willamette River several hundred feet below, and the majestic Mount Hood several miles away.

The house design capitalizes on its surroundings. The roof has a gentle pitch, so the house seems to hug the hill. The exterior siding was left its natural color to blend in with the soil and meadows. Gray-green panels by the entry pick up the foliage color of the Douglas firs.

If you look at the plan at right, you will see that the house structure encloses a court. However, this is not an inward- turning house with main views toward the court and outdoor living concentrated there. Living areas of the house really face the river scene. Visitors enter through the court, then become aware of the orientation toward the view as they encounter in rapid succession the huge windows of the living room, and the deck off the dining room, where the owners entertain, enjoy breakfast or lunch, soak up the morning sun, or just sit and admire their view. (The deck is set over in front of the kitchen to preserve the view from the dining room.)

The master bedroom faces into the hill and cool shade of the Douglas firs. Its terrace can be shut off for privacy or thrown open to the inner court merely by opening or closing double doors in the wall of the covered entry walk. Since the doors are covered with the same siding as the wall they are hardly noticeable when closed.

Solid panels alternate with slatted panels to separate the drive from the patio and entry court. The solid panels keep the house interior hidden from arrivals in the driveway. The slatted panels make the court seem open to persons looking out from the house or the patio.

The huge garden has some selected plantings to supplement the natural growth of the area; otherwise only the patio area has an appreciable amount of cultivated plant material. A barbecue is in a clearing away from the house.

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source: Sunset Homes 1966 - Planning and Landscaping Hillside Homes

One fortunate couple found a site, a remainder of an older Pasadena estate that had been overlooked by many other home-builders. However, the couple was not sure of the find until they showed the lot to architects Buff, Straub, and Hensman, who spotted the potentialities and proceeded to design this house to take advantage of the lovely trees and a year-around stream.

Study the photographs and floor plan, and you will see how the house was built right over its unusual site, down- hill from the street and over the foundations of a previous building. A bridge over the stream leads from the living room terrace to the garden below. Closed space inside a narrow concrete block pedestal is utilized for storage and mechanical utilities.

The prime objective of the design was to gain livability. For the owners, the long built-in sofa with its bookcase, and the raised hearth are outstanding successes. The utility of the bathroom is more than matched by the attractiveness that stems from its private garden.

This graceful house, nested like a living thing in its natural setting, achieves two outdoor living areas on a relatively steep slope.

One bedroom above the garage opens directly on a private sundeck at the front of the house. The room, studio- like, has a separate entry and can be used as a private apartment. It is the only room below the main floor level.

All other rooms, on the floor above, have easy access to a rear patio carved out of the wooded hillside. Although this patio is out of doors, it gives a great feeling of shelter. It is surrounded on two sides by the house. Its third side is the hill which is bulwarked by a masonry retaining wall. The fourth side is a glass and lath plant shelter. Overhead, the regular roof rafters provide some sense of protection without hiding hand- some trees and the sky from view.

Designer Harris made both areas contribute effectively to the harmony between house and site.

One of the most attractive qualities of this sloping lot is a spur of mountains several miles off to the southeast. The house is designed to get full value from the view without exposing the owners too much to the hot summer sun.

Architect Roger Lee organized the building into two clearly separated areas, for living and sleeping. A central hall makes it possible to move easily and directly from the entry to any of the rooms. A deck that begins at grade level in front and ends at grade level in the rear extends this level as an outdoor living area around the downslope half of the house, and provides an outdoor route for moving between rooms.

The uphill side of the house, facing the street, is almost blank except for some high windows. The solid rail of the deck combines with this face to give the house privacy from the street without blocking the larger view. The living- dining-kitchen block of the house creates a secluded eating area on the deck, part open and part under louvered shade, and all handy to the kitchen.

The plan was formed to facilitate the adding of another bedroom at some future time.

The requirements for designing a house for a shrinking family are just as exacting as the requirements for designing a house for an expanding family.

Here is shown the house one woman built after three of her four children had grown and left home. It was designed to accommodate a teenage daughter still living at home, and a college student son who spends his weekends at home.

For this family situation, the big two-story house the children grew up in was no longer necessary. The new house could be small, and more outward turning (to the garden the owner was now free to develop and tend as a hobby).

It was now feasible to place the master bedroom in a private situation, at the opposite end of the house from the other two bedrooms. These bedrooms are close to the kitchen, family room, terrace, and utility room. They form an apartment-like unit, separate from the master bedroom and living room side of the house, for the children when they return for visits.

The house, designed by architects Terry and Moore, was carefully planned to exploit the hillside site on the shore of Lake Washington, and detailed to shift emphasis to adults' rather than children's needs.

Building on a hillside can be an expen- sive venture, but there are ways to balance out some of the extra costs.

The house shown here, for example, was designed by architects Marquis and Stoller to take advantage of the existing grade on a site in Mill Valley, Calif. No excavation was required, and no costly retaining walls. To avoid digging into the hill for the lower floor, the architects simply pushed it forward (see sketch of side-view) and used part of its roof for the main outdoor living deck. Costs were also held down by using a boxlike construction with a simple framing system. But a high ceiling and the extension of roof beams over the deck keep the living room from seeming boxlike.

Kitchen and bathroom behind it are directly over two bathrooms below, to cut costs and concentrate weight on the uphill side. This approach simplifies plumbing problems.

Here is a one-floor house built on piers from the highest point on its hillside site. Besides the convenience of having all the rooms on one floor, the owners wanted their house high enough so they could see out over the dense growth of native trees to a fine view of Seattle.

A sensation of open space is created by the long gallery hallway in the bedroom wing and by the sweep of unbroken space between the master bed- room and the living room-dining room.

By opening the sliding doors at each end of the study (see floor plan), the owners can lie in bed and watch a fire in the living room fireplace or look out through the dining room window wall almost 50 feet away.

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.

What seemed an impossible building site now holds a three-story concrete house complete with private terrace and swimming pool. It is a fairly common practice in such situations to build on stilts and gain level space by means of decks.

Architect Maston did not wish to use the platform technique for his house in Los Angeles, so it snuggles into the hill. The house itself is designed as a massive retaining wall, leaving the rest of the hill in its natural state.

In this location, the solution is considerably more expensive than a platform. The excavation required amounted to a huge mound of earth. The massive rear wall of the house towers above the street, so building the forms and pouring the concrete were difficult tasks. The results were clearly worth the expense to the owner.