While I am not a fan of this style of home, I included this one in my showcase because…well, damn! Look at it. Floor to ceiling windows across the front of the house, a forest view from every window, the cathedral ceilings, and slate flooring with in-floor heating, so no froze toes indoors and no shoveling snow outdoors…a fact that warms this Chicago girl’s heart! What’s not to love about all that natural light streaming through the trees to flood the interior of the house? It must be absolutely glorious to wake up in the mornings to rooms, flooded with all that beautifully-filtered sunshine.

I get tingly Aspen vibes from this $44 million dollar California cabin. The house is a work of architectural art that manages to be majestic and stately, but it’s totally livable. It doesn’t feel like a museum like most luxury homes. All those beautiful lines and angles lead the eye upwards to take in the extraordinary height of the cathedral ceilings. It pretty much demands that your eyes follow those lovely contours to absorb the grandeur of its simple but elegant design. But what I love most about the architecture is the honest and natural flow between indoors and outdoors. Open the doors to the backyard, and not only do you have an amazing party setup, it all feels like one big unified space instead of two disparate and distinct spaces. Whoever built this house knew a thing or two about creating symbiosis and symmetry between indoors and outdoors. 

The big wooden beams, stone fireplace, and cabin-like feel of the wood and stone cladding on the outside creates an effortless transition between inside and outside that makes the house feel like its not just “in” the woods, but actually a part of it…as if it had grown there in Nature with the rest of the landscaping.And that landscaping looks absolutely spectacular. I say that because it doesn’t look like somebody spent a shitload of money on it, though clearly they did. It was carefully thought out to avoid that manicured look so common to most luxury homes in that price range. Instead it gives the appearance of wild growth that manages to perfectly complement the house, while peacefully coexisting with the bonafide wild growth around it. 

But what really blew my mind is the way they designed the lighting so that the house practically glows at night. It’s like they reversed the polarity of the house. It’s flooded with natural light during the day, but glows like a paper lantern at night, illuminating the surrounding woods like some kind of Lord of the Rings elven forest, rendering the house clearly visible from the lake. You can’t see the lake, but the lake can definitely see you. Entertaining outdoors at nights is not only a must in that house, that lighting practically demands that you throw killer all-night parties out there. I know I would!