Category: Residential
Region: North America
Year: 1999
Location: RENO, NEVADA, U.S.A.
FT2 Construction: 17,760 sq ft
FT2 Ground: 0 sq ft
Involved Areas: Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture

Collaborators:
LEGORRETA^®
Ricardo Legorreta
Victor Legorreta
Noé Castro
Miguel Almaraz
Adriana Cklik
Jorge Covarrubias

Associate Architects:
Arquitecto Ejecutivo: Estay Architecture & Design

Consultants:

CONTRACTOR: Frank Bleuss
STRUCTURAL DESIGN: Ferrari Associates
MECHANICAL DESIGN: Peterson & Associates
ELECTRICAL DESIGN: Pinnacle Engineering

Photographer:
Lourdes Legorreta


The site has a very strong personality; the view to the back of the site are the mountains and has the Reno valley view at the bottom. Because of the strong winds from the valley it is impossible to grow any tall vegetation, so the environment is formed with grasses, bushes and large rocks. In this environment, the solution had to be very sculptural and abstract. The composition is based in a series of walls and towers whose color blend with the landscape. A series of free-standing walls were designed and placed in the middle of the lot achieving the privacy desire for the house and hiding the access road. Another series of walls surrounding the tennis court were placed to hide the view from the main house. The result is more a composition of spaces and walls where it happens to be a house. The house was thought as a hide-out or meditation place, a kind of modern monastery. The house could be approached from one side along a large wall that encloses the shooting range. The different rooms are around the central courtyard, which has only color concrete and sculptures. Most of the house is in the first floor with only the master bedroom upstairs. The materials are very simple, plaster painted in a color that matches the surrounding vegetation and concrete floors trying not to compete with the powerful site and keep the volumes and walls as clean as possible. Natural light is a very important element in the project; through low and tall windows, vertical slots, skylights and other elements, light enters into the different spaces of the house. Another important issue was to keep the desire of living around modern art. The furniture was kept very simple in order to combine with the environment of the house. A very special room is the chapel, which is a tower painted in blue in the inside with natural light coming from one of the sides as well as from a long and narrow skylight. The landscape was kept very natural leaving the original vegetation; only gathering some of the beautiful rocks around the house.