I designed this house as my home with my writer-editor wife (since 1997).  It is in a high-forest setting surrounded by Ponderosa pine and three gardens we have built. It is metaphorically constructed to pull both your perception and your body through a series of choices regarding whether to be in public or private space in the house. One enters into the dining room, reflecting our preference for entertaining close friends at dinner parties. The western wing of kitchen and living room have a 40-foot curved wall which one of our building crew, a mathematician from Los Alamos, worked closely with me to articulate in the spacing and angling of roof trusses. The line of the ceiling refers to my childhood of building boats and my father’s passion for sailing. From this western side of the house one can look up to the dining room and the cantilevered concrete staircase which floats in space and leads up to the private bedroom and bath quarters upstairs. The east side of the house are private studio spaces/guest rooms for us or guests. The three distinct forms of the space are trapezoidal in the dining room/entry; curved in the living room/kitchen and rectilinear in the bedroom and studio spaces. One is invited constantly to move through the house’s design dynamisms.

Kate Russell photography