The Ridge Road Residence began with a constraint that became a gift. Zoning restrictions required the design to work within an existing building footprint inherited from a previous architect — a limitation that, rather than narrowing the possibilities, focused them. The footprint's orientation turned out to work well: a long, low living bar stretched across the hillside, positioned to capture expansive mountain views while stepping naturally down the steep terrain toward Boulder Canyon.

From that existing footprint, we totally redesigned everything else. The house is composed of two volumes, each rotated slightly away from the other, with a connecting entry and mudroom nestled between them. That pivot point — the hinge between the two boxes — becomes the moment of arrival. You enter through a warm wood foyer, intimate and grounded, then pierce through a long storage wall into the great room, where the landscape opens up without warning. It's a compression-and-release move that the site makes possible and the plan makes inevitable.

A staircase with generous glazing toward the mountain view connects the main level down to the basement, which opens directly out to the sloped landscape — extending the house into the hillside rather than fighting it.