Lookout House | 2025

The Lookout House offers a young family a forested urban respite. In both siting and design, it embraces the natural world while providing comfort for living. And, the house produces more energy than it uses.

While the eleven-acre property has a stunning hilltop location for a house, the owners opted to nestle theirs into the forest. On one side, the house cantilevers over a spectacular creek. The other side looks up to the hilltop.

The project offered a seasoned architect a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seek inspiration from his much hipper stepson and daughter-in-law. Working with a talented builder and an interior architect, its forms, materials, systems, and details were collaboratively designed and constructed over five years.

Its 4,800 square feet are organized as simple boxes with two shed roofs, influenced in part by Charles W. Moore’s seminal Condominium 1 at Sea Ranch in northern California. That iconic structure is clad, barnlike, in vertical redwood siding. Here, a Japanese burnt cedar siding, Shou Sugi Ban, was selected for its dramatic black finish, variegated appearance, and durability. Boards were meticulously shaped and dowelled to align slots with window frames and corners.

The main living spaces are gathered inside the larger rectangular box, with a kitchen and living room flanked by bedrooms on either end. Its southern façade features a 12-foot-tall window wall offering a dramatic, treehouse-like view of the forest canopy and creek. To ensure uninterrupted sightlines along the window wall, bedroom doors slide into wall pockets. Exterior glass doors open to a cantilevered steel deck — dubbed “the mushroom” — which is supported by a concrete plinth pinned to the ledge below.

The owners, a fashion designer and an investment manager, wanted separate offices for remote work. Housed in the upslope box above a two-car garage, these spaces frame woodland views, with copious storage for her and Bloomberg terminals for him.

Interiors are restrained and functional, to let the architecture’s composition “do its thing” and to blend natural with manmade. Millwork establishes a seven-foot-high datum line with mechanical above and service and circulation below. This compression helps emphasize the large scale of the living spaces. Storage is recessed to accentuate the geometric volumes of the house, while materials are reserved for blacks, whites, and white oak. To draw the eye outdoors, the woodstove tile surround mimics evergreens dotting the landscape.

The house is highly sustainable, producing electricity from two photovoltaic arrays. Its windows are triple-paned to reduce heat loss. The super-insulated and airtight exterior wall system was designed to Passive House standards. An energy recovery ventilator provides fresh air year-round while maintaining indoor comfort. The house, over its first year, produced more energy than it consumed.

The Lookout House is an airy retreat away from the city hustle. It reflects its owner’s sophisticated taste and was a multi-generational labor of love for its client, architects, and builders.

Category:Private HomesLocation:Accord, New York, USAArchitects:Centerbrook Architects and Planners LLC.Lead Architect: Jim ChildressDesign Team: Ben Mayne and Misha Semënov-LeivaInterior Designers:Common Concepts LLCGeneral Contractor:Design This Client: PrivatePhotographer: Jeff Goldberg/Esto