Tara Cain’s clients so enjoyed their three-month winter escape to Naples, Florida, that by the time they headed back to their Minnesota home on Lake Minnetonka, they had a contract for a 2,600-square-foot condo overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. Construction began within months, and by Christmas the couple, who have two twenty-something kids, were again soaking in the sun. “We touched every space to make it feel more elevated,” Cain says.

The designer encouraged the couple to fashion the getaway in a style different from their traditional Twin Cities home. The condo is open and airy with a coastal vibe and ocean views at every turn. “It feels more SoCal than Florida,” Cain says. “The spaces are neutral, textural, airy, and layered with natural materials and finishes.”

Entry is into a tiny space that Cain defined with a trio of Allied Maker grooved wooden flush-mount light fixtures that have presence overhead. White oak flooring installed in a herringbone pattern spreads underfoot throughout, for a sophisticated but not formal or fussy look. The walls are painted Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace, making the entire space bright, white, and light.

Although the team removed the wall between the kitchen and living area to create a unified great room, there is a 32-inch-wide portion that provides some separation between the entry and the main event. As such, rather than declaring its presence full force up front, the ocean view is partially obscured, resulting in a more gradual unfolding. That small slice of the bright-blue view pulls you in. “You naturally gravitate toward the windows and sliders to the lanai,” Cain explains.

The wall, which Cain paneled along with other walls for a cohesive, elevated effect, presents the first opportunity for artwork: a whitewashed pine sculpture by Caprice Pierucci. The elongated, three-dimensional, lacy twist of wood has the look of a vertebra that might have washed up on the beach. “As you walk around it, you see different shapes and shadows depending on where you stand and the time of day,” says Kathy Ganley, who leads the Midwest office of Mason Lane Art Advisory.

A comfy sectional in chalk-colored performance fabric sits atop a Stark rug made from natural fibers, hugging a pair of faux bois resin coffee tables with fossilized shell tops. The juxtaposition of forms and finishes renders the monochromatic area interesting. A skinny, white oak floating console with caned insets inconspicuously anchors the television on the main wall, to which Cain also added paneling. White pleated linen sconces subtly dress up the vignette and hint at the finely reeded white oak wet bar beside it.

The kitchen and dining areas stretch along the wall behind the sectional. Cain nestled into the corner a U-shaped banquette sporting marine-grade faux leather cushions with channeled backs. While the side wall boasts a picture window with an unobstructed ocean view, the back wall is held by a quietly compelling artwork by Lilian Crum. The piece features calligraphic markings made with sumi ink on paper that floats in a white wood frame. “The organic marks mimic the movement of the water outside,” Ganley observes.

To the left, a custom steel and glass shelf bridges the banquette with the kitchen, providing graphic contrast and display space without heaviness. White cabinetry does its job without encroaching upon the space visually; the quartzite countertops invigorate and tie it to the wet bar. Rattan pendants and leather stools at the island enhance the coastal tableau. “That things are durable and hardworking is especially important in a vacation home,” Cain says. “Leather looks even better as it patinas.”

A small abstract painting with a muted palette by Joanna Cutri is an intimate touch at the island, best taken in up close. “The owner was intrigued by Cutri’s work, so we found a spot for this,” Ganley shares. “She wanted work by female artists; this is a conversation piece that fits in well with the collection.”

Three bedrooms with king-sized beds, en suite baths, and a shared lanai ensure comfort for friends and family. The primary suite, with its commanding view and spa-like bath—now suffused with light thanks to a second set of doors from the bedroom—provides respite for the owners.

The home’s sole spot of color, an artwork of tinted polymer poured on aluminum panel by Susan English, hangs over the bed. “The husband asked for some color in the bedroom, so we gave it to him in ocean hues,” Ganley says. In talking about the procurement of art pieces, she and Cain note that the clear vision and collaboration contributed to the project’s success. “I like to bring the right people together to make the magic,” Cain concludes.

Learn more about the project team

Interior design: Tara Cain Design
Art advisor: Mason Lane Art Advisory

When an empty-nester couple from Minnesota with a home in Miramar Lakes, Florida, decided to purchase a 5,300-square-foot model home in the neighborhood, they called Naples-based design firm Design West to customize and furnish every space, inside and out. Designers Morgan Bratcher and Eliety Perez led the charge. “We added bespoke architectural details to give the property a resort-like feel,” Perez says.

The new home is decidedly contemporary, substantially more so than their prior one. That said, there is still coastal flavor. While natural fibers, pale woods, shots of blue are key ingredients, the designers combined them with sleek lines and sophisticated materials, such as brass. “It’s coastal with a contemporary lens,” Bratcher explains.

The exterior architecture is sure and strong from the start. The parking court’s stone pavers move from light to dark. Skinny, rhythmic lines of turf soften the approach, as do the palm trees that flank the squared-off entry arch, which is distinguished by large, greige porcelain tiles. “Greenery brought the exterior to life,” Perez observes.

A 10-foot-high pivot door opens into a soaring foyer. Oak boards with a coastal gray stain and brass inlays run from the floor up the wall to the ceiling and down the other side. The handsome treatment not only frames the arrival space, it draws the eye to the dramatic 18-foot-high ceiling.

The great room opens wide, showcasing the pool and lake beyond the retracting glass wall to the lanai, which offers seamless indoor-outdoor living. A linear gas fireplace set into a chimney faced in the same oversize tile as the designers used for the foyer floor soars up the full 18-feet. Chic modular sofas, some with open backs so as not to obscure the view, invite lounging.

To make the double height space feel more intimate, the team suspended four 12-foot-long wavy beams with integrated lights from the ceiling. “We offset them to wave into each other about halfway, and they’re dropped at two different heights,” Bratcher says. “They quietly lead your eye to the water.”

The dining area is tucked into a light-filled nook with a water view. Like the rest of the home, the space straddles a contemporary and coastal aesthetic: Upholstered three-legged chairs surround a glass-topped Kenneth Cobonpue table with an organic tree trunk-like base. A chandelier sporting beaded leather fringe hangs from the ceiling, which boasts laser-cut metal detailing within a deep blue border. “The ceiling’s pearlescent finish resembles the water,” Perez says.

A custom wine cellar with wavy shelves and brass pegs against a lighted navy and gold grasscloth backdrop sits off the dining area, as does a door to the lanai’s outdoor kitchen, making entertaining easy. For those looking to escape the action, there’s an adjacent den, made cozy with a sectional sofa and blue antelope-patterned rug.

The kitchen stretches along the wall opposite the living area. Pale white oak cabinetry with subtle striations has a relaxed coastal feel, while a Cambria backsplash with navy veining provides punch. Over the island, burnished brass pendant lights by Kelly Wearstler hang from an elongated navy ceiling panel with oak trim, which defines the space and brings down the scale.

On the other side of the house, the home office is located on the flip side of the fireplace wall. An illuminated cloud-like form is carved into the ceiling, creating a dreamy effect overhead. A softly rounded wooden desk with luscious graining is positioned in the center of the space. It’s an ideal work from home setup, although the outdoors beckons: sliders open to the seating area on the lanai.

Behind the office, the primary suite extends across that entire side of the home. The bedroom has a wall of windows with a door to the lanai as well as two fearless focal points. A headboard in horizontally-channeled, snakeskin-inspired champagne leather upholstery travels almost to the ceiling, flanked by navy panels against which the nightstands and low-hanging pendant lights pop.

On the facing wall, a bump-out wrapped with wallpaper that resembles blue agate complete with silvery flecks is a striking tableau for the television. Fashioned like a fireplace, a white oak shelf stained the same gray as the floor intersects the bump-out to ground it.

The primary bath is as pristine and luxe as a spa at a far-flung five-star oasis, with large-format, onyx-inspired porcelain tiles covering the floor and walls of the curb-less walk-in shower. The soaking tub has pride of place in front of a sky-high picture window in a nook lined with a subtly striated wood veneer. Just stepping into the space is enough to make one exhale.

There are three private guest suites too. Done in combinations of blues, whites, and sand, ochre, or mustard, the décor strikes the same sophisticated balance of coastal and contemporary as the rest of the home. Bratcher sums it up: “The home does coastal in a whole new way,” she says.

Rather than demolishing the entire 1970s home that stood on this Solana Beach, California bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Hayer Architecture’s design folded in some of the original structure. “Coastal setback and city zoning requirements for new construction would have greatly decreased the size and negatively impacted the location of a new residence in terms of capturing views,” architect William Hayer explains.

Hill Construction Company, which built the home for the family of five who relocated from a nearby community, seamlessly blended those original elements with Hayer’s new design. The firm brought Hayer’s strong contemporary design to life, making the most of the stunning views within state regulations and coastal requirements.

The key? A symbiotic relationship between indoor and out. A consistent materials palette makes the design feel cohesive. Hayer collaborated with interior designer Anita Dawson in choosing interior and exterior finishes. “I wouldn’t necessarily say one drove the other,” the architect says when asked which set of finishes came first, interior or exterior. “The materials have to work in concert from inside to outside with an indoor-outdoor design such as this.”

A linear pattern of concrete pavers that alternate with skinny strips of pebbles define the entry court, where a fire pit faced in Ocean Blue lava (a material that repeats on portions of the façade) and concrete planters set against an illuminated black stone backdrop offer instant ambiance. Snow White quartzite makes up the stairs that lead to the large, frosted-glass pivot door, then beyond it, running underfoot throughout the main level, out to the back patio. “The home takes a beating with salt spray, so we needed strong durable materials inside and out,” Dawson says.

The foyer opens into the dining room. Here, a rusty-orange table pops in front of a glass enclosure with raked limestone tiles that displays wine, two bottles deep, on a black metal shelving system. “They needed conditioned wine storage, but the open floor plan didn’t lend itself to a separate room, so we turned it into a design feature,” Dawson says. The top is quite spare; the lower (less visible) half is more utilitarian.

The condenser hides in the adjacent console with black granite top that pushes through the glass enclosure. “I don’t like when pieces just end,” Dawson says. “I need them to pick up again.” The treatment highlights the designer’s stone-wrapped built-ins, which in turn reinforce what she calls “the solid, masculine masses” of Hayer’s architecture.

An expanse of Ocean Blue lava—the floor-to-ceiling fireplace surround—anchors the living room. Walnut ceiling panels, a thick, patterned carpet, and plush, espresso-colored linen velvet upholstery soften the swathes of stone, as do the forms of the sofas themselves. “The homeowners wanted lounge seating, but a square sectional would have pinched circulation to the patio,” Dawson says. Her solution? Modular seating in organic shapes by San Francisco–based furniture designer Jiun Ho.

Dawson plays with geometric volumes of wood and stone in the kitchen, too. While bleached wood cabinetry and a back-painted glass backsplash blend into the background, the Ocean Blue lava island floats above a recessed black plinth, and a walnut peninsula offers casual ocean-front dining. “The perpendicular orientation of the table allows more people to face the view,” the designer points out. “It’s also another way of accentuating the building’s many right angles.”

Tucked around the corner from the wine display, in the middle of the house, a floating staircase rises from a pebble floor that ties to the exterior entry area. Charcoal-stained oak treads meet charcoal-stained oak floors and doors on the second level, contrasting with the white Venetian plaster walls.

The large primary suite dominates the back half of the upstairs. The bed is sheltered within a cozy niche, its ebony leather headboard reaching the ceiling. Opposite, the hazy-blue back-painted glass wall echoes the ocean view. An oversize slider opens wide to the covered patio, blurring the lines between indoors and out as effectively as the floor-to-ceiling sliders in the living spaces downstairs.

In the bath, Dawson incorporates massing that relates to the blocky architecture. The monolithic black granite tub fills a glorious glass corner, wraps a wall of book-matched marble, then pierces the frameless glass shower enclosure, turning into a bench. The designer likens marble slabs to artwork, noting that this particular one, with its graphic marks, is reminiscent of an etching.

The kids chose the stone slabs for their bathrooms, where Dawson used white pebbled tile on the floor and designed a waterfall vanity that just pushes through the shower’s glass divider.

“I’m nothing if not consistent,” she laughs. It makes for good modern design.

“The thing about living with a genius is that I get no credit whatsoever,” Rick Miller says with a laugh. “When people walk into our home, they say, ‘You’re so lucky to live with Oren,’ as if I have no taste.”

Oren is Oren Sherman, an artist, a Rhode Island School of Design professor, and a design specialist at Elkus Manfredi Architects, a high-profile commercial architecture firm in Boston. Miller, a psychotherapist and the founder of the nonprofit organization Gay Sons and Mothers, is his husband. The couple, who met as young men in Provincetown, Massachusetts, have been together for 30 years. As Sherman points out, Miller has been exposed to a lot of design. “The truth is, the house is very much a combination of the two of us,” Sherman says.

The couple are the second owners of this 1,600-square-foot midcentury modern house in Truro, a tiny town on Cape Cod. They are intent on respecting its modernist roots. When erected in 1957, it was about 800 square feet; the original owners eventually enclosed the screened porch (now the dining room) and added the primary bedroom. “It was built as a modest summer home; we didn’t want to turn it into a fancy house,” Sherman says. Still, there was room for improvement. 

They invited their friend Thomas Henry Egan III, a principal in Evolve Residential, to have a look. Egan defined a proper entry, redesigned the galley kitchen, and enlarged the windows to enhance the indoor-outdoor connection. Waking up surrounded by greenery and gazing into woods bathed in late afternoon light are among the greatest rewards of living here. “In four minutes, Tom told us what we needed,” Miller says. “His advice made this place what it is.” 

Sherman’s creations don’t hurt either. His wallpaper patterns, manufactured by Astec Wallcoverings, grace the kitchen (exploded paisley) and bedroom (a metallic faux bois) and will soon go up in the office bath. “It’s a mylar wallpaper like the kind I used to help my mother put up in her friends’ houses,” Miller says, amused. A geometric rug design of Sherman’s, manufactured by Brintons, the British company that supplies carpets for Buckingham Palace, adds pattern in the living room. 

And then there’s Sherman’s fine artwork, along with works by local artists, friends, and colleagues. A print of a Cape beach shack he painted hangs over the fireplace, surrounded by landscapes and streetscapes purchased at local auctions. Another of Sherman’s pieces—of a midcentury modern house in Los Angeles designed by Pierre Koenig—hangs in the bedroom. “It’s like I imagined we’d live in a modernist house someday,” he says. 

Everything in the home has meaning. “We came to this house wanting it to be authentically us,” Sherman says. The last thing either wants is a self-consciously stylish place devoid of character. That the interiors tell their story, as a couple and as individuals, is important. Cherished family pieces mingle with pieces they acquired together. “A house should have a sense of history, reflect the way you live now, and hold a piece of the future,” Sherman says, expanding on a quote from prominent interior designer Charlotte Moss.

In the entry, funky midcentury pottery fills a traditional antique hutch inherited from Miller’s gay great-uncle. They use his dishes and silver, too. Sherman’s most prized possession, a Lalique bowl that was a wedding present to his parents in 1944, is displayed on the midcentury modern credenza that Miller’s mom found. “I normally say that if something gets broken, don’t cry over anything that can’t cry over you, but this is irreplaceable,” he says. He feels the same about the silver candlesticks that his late mother, a silversmith and landscape designer, made in the 1950s. “I coveted them my entire life,” he says.

In the living room the pair get a kick out of their curvy vintage sofa, which reminds them of sofas their Jewish grandmothers might have had and thrown out. Soon, the sofa will sport a new look: spring-green mohair. Sherman fell hard for the fabric when specifying 1,000 yards of it in deep red for seats in a theater that Elkus Manfredi is designing. “I want to be wrapped up and buried in this mohair,” he says. 

Like the sofa, the marble-topped dining table designed by Eero Saarinen for Knoll in 1956, was a splurge. “I’d loved it for 40 years, since I worked at Design Research the summer before I went to RISD,” Sherman says, referencing the legendary Harvard Square store. It was under the tutelage of owners Ben and Jane Thompson that Sherman first saw and came to appreciate Charles and Ray Eames, Marcel Breuer, and Mies van de Rohe furniture, along with Marimekko patterns and color. 

“Overall, we didn’t spend a ton of money, but this home reflects our lives together and our personal histories,” Sherman says.

For more information, visit orensherman.com

Built about 15 years ago, this four-story house in Hermosa Beach was ready for a refresh. The natural wood cladding and metal rails on the exterior coupled with the dark wood finishes inside, not to mention the serious lack of light on the top level, simply didn’t do the dwelling justice.

The new homeowners, a family of four with two dogs, desired a look that was lighter, brighter, and more fun. The words they used? Modern, Zen, swanky, elegant, hip, and cool, “These clients were adventurous,” says Anthony Laney, whose architecture studio, Laney LA, is also located in the Los Angeles beach community. “They invited us to be expressive.”

First, Laney pared back the exterior. That’s not to say he rebuilt it, however. “We began with the premise that we would avoid unnecessary demolition,” Laney explains. “The façade only required a cosmetic refresh.” As such, he replaced the balconies’ busy metal rails with swathes of matte aluminum and transparent glass panels that disappear in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “The aluminum panels offer subdued reflections of the clouds, sky, and ocean,” he says. Refinishing the entire façade in white plaster completed the ephemeral effect.

The interior is altogether more bold. Entry is onto the second floor, which is all about entertainment and meant to wow. “They wanted the experience of a club,” Laney says. Inky blue-stained cabinetry with metal mesh inserts paired with a black quartzite backsplash and countertops hug a curved island wrapped in white quartz with gray veining. Illuminated glass teardrops hang over the neotenic piece, turning the tableau playfully glam. “There’s something the moodiness of dark millwork, stone, and metal that feels associated with libations,” Laney says. Even the swanky powder room with its black 3D tile is nightclub-inspired.

Like the exterior, the four-story floating staircase featured metal rails, which coupled with the dark treads and steel spine, felt chaotic. Laney did the unthinkable: He closed it up. “We reused the original structure and treads, boxing it in as a continuous wood volume from top to bottom,” he explains. Transparent glass panels that correspond to the ones on the exterior balconies complement the simplified white oak form and allow light to permeate. The outcome is masterful, proving less is more, even when opportunities for letting light in are involved. Despite fewer openings, sunshine is plentiful; as for the design, it is soothing and harmonious.

The third floor is devoted to quiet time. The primary bedroom suite boasts a wall of glass that opens to a balcony with a view of the Pacific Ocean. Opposite the bed, Laney created a daybed to fill dead space. The arched, oak-lined nook looks straight to the ocean. The airy, cozy nest is brilliant for reading or curling up when you don’t want to be in bed. “It’s surprising, yet feels inevitable; we can’t imagine it being anything else,” the architect says.

Laney retained the footprint of the galley bath that connects the bedroom to the closet, but gave it a crisp makeover. Trough sinks on a clean-lined vanity stretch between tall built-in cabinets, and a custom backlit mirror above is a fun detail. Matte black trim defines the glass-enclosed shower where three slabs of book-matched marble come together flawlessly.

At the top of the fourth floor, a swooped oak wall offers an early glimpse of the spectacular ocean vista. On the flip side, a daybed facing the wall of glass at the back of the house stretches alongside a picture window. Understandably, it’s a highly coveted spot for watching the sunset. The shell of the interior—white oak floors, white walls, and a hemlock slat ceiling—is sun-dappled and serene; all the attention flows to the outdoors.

An exuberant floral quadtych in fiery hues holds the center of the open-concept space. Here, a round Roche Bobois table with a Carrara marble teardrop base sits atop a circular rug edged with marine blue rays that evoke the ocean and sun.

To remedy the suffocated kitchen—dark wood cabinetry didn’t do it any favors—Laney exploded the entire ceiling. “We created a large lightwell that slopes up from the top of the cabinets to a massive skylight,” he says. The feature, which is more glass ceiling than mere skylight, washes the kitchen with light from early morning to end of day when shadows dance around the sleek white space. “What was the home’s worst feature is now its best,” Laney points out.

Opposite the island, an enormous U-shaped, channel-tufted banquette in a broody blue channel-tufted leather with a curved white oak base nestles into a niche around an equally enormous white oak table with rounded edges and an elliptical base. Delicate Rebecca Atwood wallpaper in stripey watercolor dots lines all three walls, providing a lyrical backdrop for a deliriously joyful art piece by Amber Goldhammer. The homeowners commissioned the graffiti-style painting and neon after seeing the Santa Monica-based artist’s work at a local restaurant.

The roof deck is West Coast nirvana. The lounge-y teak sectional, capsule-shaped firepit, built-in planters, and a white dining ensemble by Harbour Outdoor are the must-have accoutrements for hiding away or enjoying the salt air and ocean view with friends. Not only did Laney transform this home into a soulful oasis, he captured the family’s vibrant spirit throughout.

Learn more about the project team

Architecture and interiors: Laney LA
Builder: RJ Smith Construction
Doors and windows: Otiima USA
Breakfast banquette and table: Board & Block

Woodcliff, a stone and nickel gap contemporary with a metal roof designed by Cathy Purple Cherry for a retired energy executive and his wife, sits on a bluff 40 feet above the Severn River, an estuary off the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis. “The name is descriptive, but also references the street that the client’s father grew up on in Richmond, Virginia,” the architect says. Surrounded by tall trees and lush swaths of green lawn complete with Adirondack chairs and a flagpole, it is a picture-perfect, everyday retreat for someone who spent decades traveling the world. 

The owners, who relocated from a Texas metropolis, relish the quieter pace of coastal living—Purple Cherry surmises they didn’t landscape the river side of the property so that the husband could putter about on his tractor. They were also keen to pay tribute to their global adventures. “They wanted the house to be a living gallery,” the founder and principal of Purple Cherry Architects says. “It’s designed with clean lines and large walls against which they can display collections from their extensive travels.” 

The 6,300-square-foot home stretches nearly 160 feet east to west along the craggy cliff in what Purple Cherry calls a “fantastic long line.” That said, this is no mere low-slung rectangle. The podlike design alternates between three one-story volumes with gable roofs oriented east-west and two double-height towers with gable roofs oriented north-south, with a flat-roofed connector between them. The effect is lyrical and nearly symmetrical, save for a screened porch that juts north toward the water and a three-car garage that pushes south on the flip side. 

That the eastern tower is the entry is clear, literally. Both the front and back façades are glass, from the foundation to the roof. That the house is see-through, from front to back along most of its length, was a significant aspect of the design. “All the primary spaces capture the view,” Purple Cherry says, noting that the isolated site allows for such splendor. 

From the low platform of a front porch, and with the water a straight shot ahead, 10-foot-tall glass doors open into the gallery-like space, its ceiling soaring to 28 feet at the ridge. That the room is just 13 feet wide amplifies the impact. 

Expanses of warm white walls showcase lifetimes of artifacts. There is a collection of antique copper plates that the husband’s parents acquired when the family lived in Turkey and a grouping of carved camel bells from Djibouti, a small country in East Africa. Figural sculptures by Mozambique ceramicist Reinata Sadimba stand on simple pedestals flanking the back door. And a linear fireplace invites guests to linger. “The space can be used for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres when they entertain,” Purple Cherry says. 

Tall openings at the left lead into the open-concept living area with a vaulted ceiling. A coffee table that the homeowner made from a slab of wood from an East African mango tree is an earthy accent between swoop-armed sofas in front of a fireplace with an elevated concrete hearth. A 30-foot wall of glass opens to the bluestone patio, making indoor/outdoor living and entertaining easy, a must on a property like this. On the south side of the house, slim upholstered chairs neatly surround a dark wood pedestal table in front of windows looking to the woods.  

The elegant kitchen recedes against the wall opposite the seating area. Rift-sawn white oak frames a niche lined in charcoal sintered stone with subtle veining; a rectilinear hood in the same material and offset white oak shelves make for a minimalist arrangement against it. The induction cooktop disappears in the matching charcoal sintered stone countertop, which is also used on the prep portion of the island with nary an overhang. A pale gray cantilevered tabletop wraps the island base, providing a causal spot for the couple to eat that is conducive to conversation. 

“You’re either a big cook or you simply stop once the kids are out of the house,” Purple Cherry says. “Many of my clients are tired of the kitchen being front and center and acting as a drop zone for everything.” To that end, the architect slotted a full-service galley kitchen behind the beautiful tableau. The sleek, uberfunctional area contains a gas cooktop, an assortment of ovens, a refrigerator, a freezer, a coffee station, and storage aplenty. Even the sink and dishwasher are in there, as the end cap with a view. “You hope that if the coffee is in the back, the mess will stay back there too!” Purple Cherry says. 

The bedroom pods stand sentinel on either end of the house. A pair of bedroom suites for the couple’s daughters are on the west end of the house, past the back kitchen and tower pod with the stair and elevator up to the husband’s office. While there is also a guest house on the grounds—a smaller, more casual version of the main house—their offspring stay here with their parents. There is plenty of privacy since the primary suite is in the easternmost pod. Its standout moment? A freestanding tub perfectly positioned in a corner of glass. Open the slider and you’re basically bathing al fresco, the ultimate indoor/outdoor connection.

Learn more about the project team

Architecture: Purple Cherry
Construction: ILEX Construction
Landscape Architecture: Campion Hruby Landscape Architects

For years, this San Diego-based telecommunications company founder and his wife escaped to a condominium in a golf community on the southwestern coast of Maui. Their kids, and later their grandkids, joined them; everyone loved it. So, the couple decided to build a contemporary Hawaiian dream home that would comfortably accommodate four generations and last many lifetimes. “They wanted a family legacy that would patina gracefully and celebrate tropical lifestyle by seamlessly blending indoors and outdoors,” Randy Hanna, principal at HGW Architecture, says. 

Hanna worked closely with Ian Morris, principal at GroundLevel Landscape Architecture, to realize the couple’s vision. Diverse local plantings surround the limestone structure, creating a private tropical wonderland that entices at every turn, and not just visually. “The garden initiates multiple senses,” Morris says. “It attracts birds that sing, there are fruit trees the family can harvest, flowers provide incredible smells, and pathways feel good on bare feet.” 

Although much of the home is oriented toward the water—it sits above the shores of the Pacific Ocean abutting a seaside golf course—the backside views are also stellar. “Usually, a house is all about the ocean, but they also face Haleakala Volcano,” Hanna notes. “There are lanais on both sides for views, outdoor access, and tropical breezes.”

Entry is along the volcano side of the pavilion-style home, where a path of Montrachet limestone pavers with sawn surfaces runs from the street to a Hawaiian bluestone and sapele mahogany gate, and then ascends slowly up a series of stairs. The gate highlights the first moment of bespoke local craftsmanship. “On the street side of the gate, there is a relief carving of ocean waves because you are headed to the water,” Hanna says. “On the flip side there are mountains.”

A glass pivot door marks the formal entry, though one might step right into the living room from the eastern lanai. After all, pocketing glass walls open nearly the entire perimeter of the house to the outdoors. That the Montrachet limestone pavers continue underfoot, through the living space, out to the western lanai, and up to the edge of the infinity pool, reinforces the connection. 

Inside, furnishings are spare, but meant for relaxation, and decorative details take cues from traditional Hawaiian arts. There are handmade reproduction antique Hawaiian surfboards leaning against plaster walls and a sapele mahogany–wrapped column with a carved band that tells the family’s story in the manner of traditional Hawaiian tattoo art. And, at the center of the home, bubinga wood panels with a sapele mahogany relief carving of Maui wraps the three-level open stair with lacy aluminum risers and ipe treads.

On the other side of the stair, at the northwest corner, a dining patio with an outdoor kitchen wraps the open-air indoor kitchen. A sleek ipe boardwalk separates the cooking/dining patio from the pool, jutting eight feet into the landscape over the home’s Hawaiian bluestone foundation, about 15 feet above the lower yard. This cantilevered boardwalk looks to Molokini, an uninhabited spit of land known for its snorkeling. “The concept of this lookout point evolved from wanting to celebrate the commanding view,” Hanna says. “We ran the boardwalk all the way into the house, to the foot of the stair, to further connect the house to the site.” 

Three generous guest suites with lanais and a double bunk room with a catamaran netting loft are located on the north and south ends of the home, while the primary suite enjoys elevated views on the second level, as does the family room. Lanais wrap both spaces on two sides, showcasing the owners’ favorite views past the rhythmic bronze rails: the golf course and the island’s only black sand beach. 

Interior spaces with soaring cedar ceilings and exposed structures lean into traditional Hawaiian long room architecture, and walnut screens laser-cut with palm frond patterns mask attic windows and louvers that let in natural light and ocean breezes. Similar to those in the guest suites below, aluminum panels with an abstract scattering of perforations in the shape of plumeria petals ensure privacy for would-be bathers using either of the side-by-side indoor and outdoor showers that look out to the volcano. 

Finally, for those seeking something beyond—or rather, above—the meandering gardens and black sand shores, the stair goes up another level, to the roof. There’s a roof deck and a lawn. “It’s the one place that captures a 360-degree view,” Hanna says. “You see the ocean, the volcano, and the stars.” 

Learn more about the project team

Architect: HGW Architecture
Landscape Architect: GroundLevel Landscape Architecture
Structural Engineer: Scot Listavich Structural Engineering
Civil Engineer: Otomo Engineering, Wailuku, HI
Lighting Designer: Ron Neal Lighting Design
Construction: Haven International, Kihei, HI
Wood Carvings: G&S Woodworks