Montara House

Notes:
Square footage: 1233 sqft
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 1.5
Completion date: October 2023
Location: Montara, California
Name of Owners: Moshe Porter and Adanya Lustig
**Of note: Moshe Porter is also the Architect for the project and CoFounder of Porter & Erb Architects.
Owners are willing to be photographed and featured in a story if selected.
The project has not appeared in any publications or submitted for any awards.

Story:
Four years ago, my partner and I (her 22, and I 24), started the design of a home where we could start our family. We found a piece of land nestled into the California coastline in the town of Montara, which is a little south of San Francisco and a little north of Half Moon Bay. Throughout the four years of the project, while dreaming of our ideal home, we had our fair share of challenges. We dealt with a necessary well destruction, a 75-foot cypress tree falling on the land and a tight deadline on moving in before our daughter was born (we made it, with three months to spare). In the end we created a home that contains our heart and soul, and we hope it will be an ideal environment for our daughter to learn and grow.

There are four key elements of the design of this home: An efficient structure and simple building form, inexpensive but textured interior finishes, a wood-wrapped exterior, all with an aim to celebrate the natural beauty of the surrounding area.
Keeping the structure simple and efficient was very important to keeping the funds directed towards the exterior finish and the focus on the natural landscape. The house is a simple barn structure with two boxed elements at the first floor to indicate the entries. The house also has a simple detached flat-roofed office in the back which houses our architecture studio (pe-arch.com).

Our desire with the interior finishes was to achieve a textured look with a relatively low cost. We utilized concrete floors, butcher block counters, and large handmade clay light fixtures. The light fixtures, made by my brother @isaih_pottery (Instagram), bring color and texture to the very simple room. The green cabinets, butcher block counters and concrete floors play off the light fixtures to create a subtle warm atmosphere. Upstairs, the darker flooring and exposed wood stairs help to create a perfect foreground for the views of the mountain.

The exterior siding is unfinished Ipe, oriented vertically. We wanted a material that would weather in time, but also provide excellent fire protection in the event of a wildfire. Ipe is a hardwood that will age naturally over time to a beautiful gray. It also holds a fire rating just as strong as concrete panel siding. The siding plays well with the interior finishes too, creating a weathered and textured look nestled in to the neighborhood.

While many of the design decisions had a basis in cost, the design of the home strongly considers the natural environment around it. The footprint was kept relatively small, allowing for a sizable yard. The windows are narrow but tall to provide views of the mountain from the interior spaces. There is only one back door, but it provides excellent light and a glimpse of the yard from most of the first floor. It was very important to us that the house be a place that our daughter could grow and appreciate the unrefined texture of clay, concrete, and wood, but we also wanted to encourage her to get outside as much as possible.

Through the building of the house we had many challenges, but the thing that kept us going was the overall goal to achieve an efficient, textured home at a reasonable cost. We feel that this project represents the core ambition of our architecture practice which has led us to create a durable, cost effective, and beautiful home that compliments its site with lots of soul. We would love to share more of the story if selected for publication. This home has not been published previously.