A collaboration with the architect John Covert Watson, who cut his architectural teeth with Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1950s, on an extremely complex and challenging construction of his version of ‘Organic Architecture’. The compound includes a Caretaker and Storage building that has desert masonry, redwood and glass walls capped by a SIPS (structural insulated panel system) and steel roof system. Imagine splaying out a pack of cards, and you have the form of this roof. The approach to the Main Lodge takes one through the main portal of the Caretaker structure, down a meandering path through the landscape, and culminates at the Main Lodge. This structure consists of 12 equal slices of an 82’ circle, imaginatively roofed with a combination of hyperbolic parabolas, a 12-sided Kalwall skylight, and conventional membrane and gravel cladding. Cork, stucco, Ipe wood, cedar logs, and glass combine to create a grounded yet transparent interior, and provide an interior-exterior synthesis that is remarkable in its sublimity. An amazing swimming pool, set in the crevasse between the limestone cliff and a broken-off house-size ‘rock’, culminates this complex and spatially adventurous single-family residence, as befitting the design architect’s tenure as an intern with Frank Lloyd Wright.
Credits
Architect: Biostructures - John Covert Watson
Project Architect: Peter Dick Architect
Structural Engineer: Structures – Jerry Garcia
General Contractor:
Don Crowell, Inc /
Peter Dick – Project Manager
Photos by Paul Bardagjy
