Category Archives: Architecture & Design

Home Tours Day 2

tahoe house
Yesterday, Audrey and I were on the West Shore of Lake Tahoe for another home tour. BEAUTIFUL house—an 8,000 square foot Loverde-built lakefront with exquisite craftsmanship and attention to detail. Besides getting to tour the home, I had a wonderful day—stopped by the TQ offices, went out for lunch and took a coffee break at Tahoe City’s Tahoe House for a peppermint mocha. As much as I enjoy living in Reno, I definitely miss Tahoe’s small, unique towns. Anyway, it was wonderful to spend a day in the mountains—even better that I was getting paid for it!

On a side note, I saw that the search term “nudeandveryhairy” leads to my site. I finally realized that it must be from my article profiling Dave Russo where Pablo Picasso has him paint a French model who is nude, pregnant and hairy, but still, I’m pretty sure whoever googled that was not looking for an arts piece!

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Martis Home Tours

martis home

Today, I got to visit two Martis Camp homes that I’ll be writing up for Tahoe Quarterly. Both are incredible homes—the first, designed by architect Ted Brobst of Ward-Young, creates a contemporary retreat utilizing hot rolled steel, Western red cedar and ledgestone. The second, designed by Scott Gillespie of SANDBOX and built by Mark Tanner Construction, is the perfect family getaway, complete with a bunk room, sleeping porch and great outdoor spaces. At the second home, I had to opportunity to meet the wonderful homeowner and one of her sons, and the two of them were more than welcoming, showing me around, telling stories and even entertaining Audrey, who was my little work buddy for the day. The TQ Home issue is my personal favorite of the year, featuring the area’s best architects, builders and designers. I’ve got two more homes to tour and write up, but in the meantime, find links to some of the articles I’ve written for issues past here, here and here!

TQ Home Awards 2013

Last week, I went into the TQ office to proof the Ski & Ride issue, which will be out in the next few weeks. While I was there, I was able to sit in on a meeting to choose the contestants for this year’s Home Awards. The Mountain Home issue, as I’m sure I’ve said before, is my absolute favorite issue of the year. We get to tour these outrageous properties, talk to the region’s most renowned architects and designers, and learn the inside scoops on some really incredible homes. This year’s finalists promise to be as good as ever: The majority of the home’s are located in Martis Camp, which, with looser design guidelines than many private communities, spawns some incredibly unique architecture. We’ve got a couple of lakefront estates, some very impressive commercial buildings and, my personal favorite from the applications, a home with floating glass stairs and an open, glassed-in wine cellar.

If baby lets me, I’m hoping to be able to attend the tours in the next few weeks. If baby decides to arrive a little early, I suppose I can make my peace with that!

DCA Website

Designing timeless architecture—a nod to the past, an eye to the present. 

The Dale Cox Architects site is live! I love the photo layout that April used and I think the entire site looks so crisp and refreshed. I love architecture so it was really a treat to write up the firm’s philosophy and sustainability practices as well as the descriptions of some pretty amazing building projects. The detailing and craftsmanship of some of these places is just beyond-belief gorgeous. Now, to see if any of the owners are interested in a home swap…