This Award-Winning Home Was Designed to Impress, Without Ruining Neighbors’ Views

If you can hire Marmol Radziner to design your home, you can, in theory, have just about anything you want. But what the homeowner of the house gracing the cover of our annual Home & Design issue wanted most was something surprisingly restrained: a home that would all but disappear into its surroundings.

“I didn’t want to ruin the views for my neighbors,” he told us as we photographed the house on a spectacular early spring day in Santa Barbara County. And in a region where ostentation and hillside grandeur often dominate the landscape, he instead asked for a guesthouse and gym to be carved directly into the slope, nestled within the land, rather than perched atop it. One roof is dotted with cacti, another with grasses and agaves, giving the structures the feel of a modernist hobbit house (the Tolkien comparisons come up often when architects see the design). “When Ron [Radziner] showed me the plan, he nailed it.”

Thomas J. Story

With sweeping vistas of oak groves, citrus orchards, and the Channel Islands across the Pacific, the home is both dramatic and deeply sensitive to place. Stone for the exterior walls was quarried on site. The landscaping is low-water and leans native. Solar panels heat the pool. An accessible ramp welcomes all visitors. A Murphy bed tucks neatly into the pool house—proof that thoughtful design can be both beautiful and practical.

Marmol Radziner has long been at the forefront of California’s architectural evolution—known for pioneering prefab innovation, pushing material boundaries, and helping preserve and reinterpret modernist landmarks like Richard Neutra’s iconic Kaufmann House. Its work consistently balances rigor with warmth, ambition with humility. So, it’s no surprise that this home inspires immediate awe at its sculptural lines while also delivering that elemental feeling of shelter, of being part of the land rather than imposed upon it. And it’s exactly the spirit we celebrate in our second annual Home & Design Awards, where we honor the designers, makers, and visionaries shaping the future of living in the West.