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The Gratt Residence occupies a severely constrained site—one that happens to be about 100 yards from the Pacific Ocean. The triangular lot was formed from the equal division of a square corner lot into two halves. Programmatically, this is a retirement home with space for visiting children and grandchildren.
The first floor is divided in thirds, with the left side containing the public entrance, living and dining rooms. The middle third contains a two-car garage, laundry room and kitchen. The right third contains a guest bedroom and family room, and also leads to the rear yard gardens and jacuzzi.
The second floor contains bedrooms and an office, with generous closets and bathroom in the master suite. The master bedrom directly faces the view of the Pacific, and the other two bedrooms also have water views.
Materially, the dwelling uses wood sheathed planes defining space within a concrete framework. The architecturally exposed concrete serves as gravity and lateral load-reisisting structure, and also as a space-defining trope within the open-plan first floor. A curved roof plane helps define volumetric carvings on the second floor, which provide over 1500 square feet of exterior decks off the bedrooms. On the interior, exposed structural beams meet a cherry and steel stair to join structure with finish.
The building was fine-tuned through the use of deep roof overhangs and punched aluminum awnings to require no mechanical cooling and little heating. The house exceeds California energy efficiency standards by 40 percent.
The custom front door designed by Sealander Studio uses bent cherry and sand-blasted glass to evoke a curtain being pulled to one side. The glass is framed in stainless steel flat bars, and the door frame itself is stainless steel.
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