A window to trees, present and past

This hillside house provides strong panoramic views of former farmland and trees. The design was inspired by the traditional agrarian cultures, and the now-extinct buildings, which preceded today’s Midwestern suburbs. The compact linear structure of steel and glass, only 17 feet wide, frames the outdoors for its residents, and visually refers to the pole framed longhouses commonly built by the Miami Indians in the late seventeenth century. The free-standing stone walls (which refer to stone farmhouse ruins), rise over the sunken eastern garage into a lookout with views down the valley to the north.