At Lake Tahoe, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ) looked to Europe for clues in designing a ski-in, ski-out set of 17 town homes and single family residences.

The Stellar Collection was influenced especially by Switzerland’s success in integrating materials and natural settings, for a modern solution.

“The older development up there has a traditionalist aesthetic, a Tahoe style with steeply pitched roofs, logs and stone,” says BCJ architect Greg Mottola. “This is about shed roofs, tilted up to the view.”

And what a view: sited 6,700 feet above sea level, the homes open up to the Carson Range in the distance, with landscape and ski slopes sprawling in the foreground.

“In the single family units you enter in high and the house drops down the hill,” he says. “So you’re  perched up above the forest with big glass that opens up to a deck and a covered porch.”

The materials tell a story of luxury: In the single-family residences, there’s Pennsylvania Bluestone for great room floors, Vals Quartzite in the master bath (think Peter Zumthor’s Therme Baths), and white-washed hickory floors in bedrooms. In the townhomes, there’s more bluestone for the great room floor, brushed white oak floors, and charcoal grey quartzite floors in the master bath.

“We’re trying to have the details carry the day,” he says. “They’re very legible when you’re inside them.”

The target market is the tech-savvy residents of the San Francisco Bay area, now in search of a second home.

“It’s for the tech workers who tend to seek out authentic experiences after working in the abstract world,” he says.

They’re under construction now, and due for completion in the fall.

For more, go here.

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