Cane House.

Sun-warmed Mediterranean for a young family that cooks outside.

Plate
08
Location
Mill Valley, California
Site
1.4 acres
Scope
II · Design + build

Status

Design + build · Scope II · Stewardship since 2024

Begin a similar brief All plates

I.PLATE 08 · INTRODUCTION

The brief,
in short.

A 1.4-acre Mill Valley property with a south-facing terrace, an existing pool, and a brief that asked for one thing: somewhere we'd want to eat dinner four nights a week. We replaced the lawn with a sun-warmed terrace, an outdoor kitchen, and an olive grove that screens the road.

II.I. THE BRIEF

The brief

Two cooks and three kids. The brief was a single sentence — a place we'd want to eat dinner four nights a week. The existing house was 1970s vintage with a south-facing terrace that had been covered in lawn for forty years. The pool was untouchable; the lawn was not.

Olive grove detail — PLATE 08.A · Manzanillo grove screening the road

III.II. THE SITE

The site

Mill Valley sun, Mill Valley fog. The south-facing terrace cooks at 4 p.m. and cools to sixty by 8. The road runs along the west property line at a height that puts car headlights in the dining-room window every evening. The pool sits in the center of the lot, which we couldn't move; it became the spine.

PLATE 08.B · Outdoor kitchen + walnut counter

IV.III. THE INTERVENTION

III

The intervention

The lawn became travertine, laid with a saw-cut joint pattern that runs from the terrace edge to the pool coping. An outdoor kitchen on the east wall. A grove of seven Manzanillo olives screens the road and brings the western edge in. Lavender and rosemary edge the terrace; the smell at dinner is the work.

Lavender terrace — PLATE 08.C · Lavender at the terrace margin

V.IV. THE PLANTING

The planting

Olives are the structure. Lavender 'Grosso' and rosemary at the terrace margins for the smell. Citrus in raised beds on the east wall — Meyer lemon and a Bearss lime — close to the kitchen so cooks can reach. The understory is creeping thyme and a small parterre of Stipa gigantea where the lawn used to start.

VI.V. MAINTENANCE PLAN

Maintenance plan

Verdant Stewardship since spring 2024. Monthly visit April through October; quarterly through winter. Olives pollarded biennially in February. Citrus monitored for scale; we lost one Meyer in the second winter and replaced it under year-one warranty. The parterre is edged twice a year.

VII.MATERIALS · PLANT SCHEDULE

5 MATERIALS · 7 SPECIES

MATERIALS