This weekend house is located on a beautiful wooded site on Cedar Creek Reservoir. The project program included the design of a main residence, guest pavilion, storage barn and various ancillary architectural features. The goal of the design was to provide an artful and low maintenance retreat that would blend in with the site.
The Trout Lake retreat contains four distinct buildings arranged in two groupings. The first grouping contains the main house, a woodworking shop, and a carport all contained under a single roof in a T-shape. A covered courtyard connects the three spaces in the middle of the “T”.
Accessible only by winding gravel roads, the site for High Horse Ranch in California’s Mendocino County is full of steep slopes and open meadows. The owners were struck by the dramatic experience of approach and arrival, where the edge of a cliff falls away and reveals a panoramic view of the forested valley below.
In the seemingly remote, granite hills of this northeast Victorian farm, Templeton was commissioned to create a weekend getaway. The Matilda house is situated on the same site that our client spent his childhood and is therefore layered with sentiment.
Located on the western edge of Gros Ventre Butte, the sloping site for this residence offers extraordinary views of the Snake River Valley and the Teton Mountain Range. The program of this contemporary rural retreat is experienced as a series of linear bars that parallel the valley.
The owners for this 5,600-square-foot residence desired a “ fishing cabin ” in the West. They purchased property with an existing house on a beautiful 10-acre site in Jackson, Wyoming. The land offered privacy, views to the Teton Mountain Range, close proximity to a fishing creek and access to the wildlife habitat that the creek supports.
The buildings of Whidbey Retreat are expressed as industrial objects within the landscape, eschewing the idea of ‘blending’ with the surroundings and, instead, striving for a harmonious composition of elements in the forest – an arrangement encouraged by the adventurous aesthetic of the artist clients.
A recently retired couple wanted to build a summer villa that would reflect their aspiration for enjoying the beautiful lakeside landscape with their extended family and friends, while at the same time minimising the impact of the construction on the surrounding natural environment.
