Escape to the end of the Earth
Oceanfront home the perfect hideaway — just ask Brad Pitt
When award-winning architect Steven Harris and his client chose a cliff on the southernmost tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula to build a winter home, they picked a supremely private spot.
“It’s magnificent,” Harris says of the site 75 metres above the Pacific Ocean in Cabo San Lucas.
With rocky slopes giving way to a sandy beach that eases into an endless expanse of azure waters, it’s one of the few places in the world where the desert meets the ocean.
But the cliffside location of the contemporary, multi-level residence — called Casa Finisterra after the Latin words for “end of the Earth” — was “challenging,” Harris admits.
Yet it allowed him to make the most of vistas, natural light and ocean air. The stylish retreat caught the attention of Brad Pitt, who stayed there while filming Troy, the 2004 movie about the legend of the Trojan War. (The outer walls of the ancient city of Troy were built and filmed in Cabo.)
Pitt even had a temporary gym set up in the carport to train for his role as the Greek warrior Achilles.
The homeowners were late songwriter George David Weiss and his wife Claire, who spent years searching for the right spot to build.
Claire was the main collaborator on the project while George, whose senses were more attuned to music, “was not terribly visual,” recalls Harris.
The prolific songwriter, who died in 2010 at age 89, co-penned such classics as “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” made famous by Elvis Presley; “What a Wonderful World,” sung by Louis Armstrong; and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a hit for the Tokens in 1961.
Weiss’s influence in the creation of Casa Finisterra, completed in 2001, is seen in an outdoor living room built so he could watch the whales.
He also “loved the light” around the site, says Harris, who incorporated a number of design features to capture its movement and variations.
For example, a hallway comes to life in the morning with circles of light from glass balls embedded in the wall. And a space in the inverted hipped roof over the living room turns sunset-pink during cocktail hour.
Erected with as little excavation as possible, the architecturally significant residence straddles the rock face “like a saddle over a hump,” according to Harris. Some of the interi- or walls are the natural stone facade of the cliff.
The house comprises a “series of spaces” built around an irregular courtyard with the main living areas contained on one level as stipulated by Claire, explains the New Yorkbased architect.
Two wings were created, one a private L-shaped area containing the master suite, media room and gym, and the other, a long rectangular space housing the living room, dining room and kitchen. Guest suites are located in the lower levels of each wing.
Between the two sections is the outdoor living room, which over- looks a 15-metre lap pool cantilevered out over the cliff. Harris configured the house and used glass extensively in order to capitalize on the panorama at every turn.
“The role of an architect is to frame the view,” he says, explaining that the scene changes as you move through the home and its various levels. “It’s carefully choreographed to reveal views slowly and over time.”
Composed of reinforced concrete and high-strength laminated glass embedded with small pieces of stainless steel at strategic points, the entire structure is built to withstand the worst hurricane, Harris points out.
Claire is now selling the home following the 2015 death of American producer and songwriter Luigi Creatore, one of Weiss’s collaborators whom she married after he died.