Lots to love in this post as the site plan is starting to take shape. Michael from Stillwater came up to meet with me for a conference call with the rest of the team to share their progress so far. And I’m excited by what I’m seeing.
This meeting they walked through their initial thoughts on how the site could be utilized given the slope, the setback requirements and the geographic composition. With input from the GeoConcepts work and in consultation with Coast Engineering, a few things emerged. First, my initial thought of stacking garage, shop, and house, doesn’t work for a variety of reasons – mostly related to setback, height requirements, and having to over engineer the garage to support the levels above. Second, they are looking to use more of the width of the land instead of keeping things square or going deeper in.
The left screen above shows the separate garage at the bottom of the property, then further up the shop level, then house. This is all against the actual topography of my hillside. For the initial house layout (right), they are starting from a current in-progress design that incorporates a daylight basement level, which they will then modify to my specifications. I really like this plan as it places the master bedroom at the front of the house, looking out over the canyon alongside the living room and kitchen, and still gives me everything I wanted with a master bath. Next steps are to continue the plan modifications around the bathrooms, entry, and the stairs to the shop level as well as continue to refine the placement on property and design the complex outside stairway up to the main house. Even though I lost the connection from the garage to the shop, if this satisfies all the zoning requirements – I’m thrilled.
In all my interactions with Stillwater I can’t say enough about how great they’ve been answering my questions and explaining the process. I’m constantly learning on this journey and its exciting to see a group of professionals take a rough idea and make it a reality.