A place of rest and renewal.
The prevailing western breezes move across the surface of the pool and cool the house and porch.
The covered porch with its cooking fireplace.
The Big Room
The porch looking toward the big kitchen window
Kitchen
Detail in the communal bath.
Sleeping.
Rest and repose.
Essentially two separate buildings linked by covered porch.
Elevation sketches
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Black Mountain Retreat

Forestville, California 2000

Three families collaborated to create this weekend retreat on a 165-acre lot in Sonoma County.

Our design created two buildings linked by roofs that provide shelter for a porch that connects the two structures and a veranda that wraps around them. One building is simply a single large room that provides space for cooking, eating and relaxing. The other contains spaces for bathing, sleeping, and storage. The outdoor porch between the two buildings overlooks the pool and an expansive meadow beyond and stays cool in the hot Sonoma summer. In the evenings an open cooking fireplace in the porch provides warmth and an inviting place to gather.

The buildings, which total 2,100 sq. ft., were rendered in a simple and timeless palette of terracotta pavers over a radiating concrete slab, cast-in-place concrete columns, stained cedar siding, and standing seam metal roofs. The custom doors and windows were crafted in fir.

Cutsheet for Black Mountain Retreat

Owner: Andre Carothers and Tribe
Architect: Robert Nishimori, David Trachtenberg, Ken Powelson
Engineer: Ingraham DeJesse Associates
Builder: Talia Developments
Photography: Trachtenberg Architects