Tour showcases spectacular houses in the Silicon Valley
CUPERTINO >> When Pam and Paul Costa set out to build their home, they had an ambitious, if not fantastical, design in mind: A glass treehouse floating in the middle of a forest.
Nearly three years later, the Costas are living out their vision in an ultramodern, minimalist home nestled in the hills above Cupertino, where modern architecture meets the soothing inspiration of nature. Far away from the hustle and bustle and the tech buildings that so commonly characterize Silicon Valley, the home pays homage to the art of architecture and design.
“We knew we wanted to build but we just got out-bid and outbid,” said Pam Costa, 41, on Saturday from the couple’s home, one of
five privately owned homes open to the public for the annual Silicon Valley Modern Home Tour. “Those were all flat lots. Then we found this lot and it was a super-steep hill in the middle of a forest. We brought (architect Craig Steely) and were standing up on the road and we were like, ‘OK, we’re envisioning this glass treehouse where we’re at the level of the tree tops.’”
The glass-walled house sits on two large pillars that are drilled into the bedrock on a steep hillside; it’s surrounded by oak trees.
“A glass house is really a hard thing to do,” Steely said. “But in a canopy of trees like this, it was perfect. The idea of coming in above the tree tops, looking over the top of everything, and then coming down into the canopy of the trees seemed like the most interesting and expressive way to build the house on the site.”
The daylong, self-guided tour by the Modern Architecture and Design Society
gives architects, designers and homebuilders a chance to showcase their modern creations to the community and gives design enthusiasts a rare glimpse into some of the most spectacular homes in Silicon Valley. The group has hosted more than 100 tours of modern homes in 25 cities across the country since its inception in 2009.
Homes were showcased in Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills, Sunnyvale and Cupertino on Saturday for about 700 attendees.
“It’s not just design, but it’s also technology and green living and new ways to live a modern lifestyle,”
said Jamie Leasure, founder and president of the Modern Architecture and Design Society. “What these homes do is show people not only what it’s like today with cutting-edge stuff, but also what it was like in 1950 or 1960 or 1970. We try to highlight a range of what is contemporary and what the future is and has been throughout the second half of the century.”
Jiwon Hong, of Sunnyvale, arrived promptly at 11 a.m., excited and awestruck as she wandered around the Costas’ pristine home. She’d read an article about the house and wanted to see it.
“I love that nature surrounds the house because you never get bored,” she said. “I can totally see myself, if I had a house like this, having breakfast and just spacing out looking at the trees.”
One of the most curious — and perhaps the most enviable — spot in the Costas’ home is the “conversation pit.” Enclosed by floor-to-ceiling glass windows (think of a fishbowl) that display a panorama of trees outside, the room features a plush, 250-squarefoot custom couch where the family enjoys good chats and some TV.
Steely organized the open layout of the home with sunken spaces to create level changes and zones. Their office, for example, is in a small space under the staircase.
Inside the home, you won’t find any wall art, family photos or random clothes or paperwork strewn about. But that’s the point.
All of the closet or storage space in the home is hidden, barely noticed behind the walls. The guest bedroom doubles as a small family room, Murphy bed and all. The guest bathroom includes a shower that also doubles as a small, sunken tub.
“I wanted it to be radically simple,” said Paul Costa, 42, an engineer for Apple. “So simple that somebody would be like, ‘People live here?’”
“And they do,” chimed in Pam Costa, a sex and relationships coach. “They come in and ask, ‘So where’s your stuff?’ “We’re like, ‘This is it.’”
For the Costas, building a house from scratch wasn’t really about creating a home, but about the process of working with an architect to bring to life their vision. They enjoyed the three years it took to get utilities to the site, the year-plus of design work and the two years of construction.
“It was just really cool to see something get built,” Pam Costa said. “I don’t think building a home is something you do for resale; at least that’s not why we did it. We made a lot of decisions here that I think a lot of people wouldn’t make, but that was part of the freedom of it.”