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Bohlin Cywinski Jackson reinterprets the chalet for Lake Tahoe

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Bohlin Cywinski Jackson reinterprets the chalet for Lake Tahoe

San Francisco–based architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ) have completed work on the Mountainside Stellar Residences and Townhomes, a ski-in, ski-out complex of residences and townhomes located on the slopes of Northstar, an upscale community located beside Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border.

The project, designed in partnership with developers West Partners and Mountainside Partners, consists of six detached residences and 11 clustered townhomes, each designed to maximize views of the surrounding landscape and to operate on a year-round basis. The homes represent an attempt by the firm to reinterpret the upscale ski chalet for a contemporary area and are designed with sustainability and technology at their forefront and are built to achieve LEED Gold certification.

Located amid a grove of Jeffrey pine and Douglas fir trees, the detached residences are themselves clustered on a compact site overlooking ski slopes and a mountainside lift, with the homes visually grouped together by their mirrored floor plan configurations. Each 3,400-square-foot structure is entered from above and features a double-height, upper-level great room living area topped by a large, wood-clad roof overhang. The overhang shields an outdoor loggia that extends from the indoor living areas and is supported by a simply articulated post-and-beam assembly. A black-stained cedar wood shingled wall separates the living wing of each home from the bedroom areas, one of which is a master suite. That suite is cantilevered slightly over the ski slope and is wrapped on three sides by floor-to-ceiling glass walls. All of this rests above a blonde cedar wood siding-wrapped base containing two smaller bedrooms, a guest master suite, and a media and entertainment room.

The townhomes, each roughly 2,200 square feet in size, cascade down a gentle slope, except here, instead of having shifts in facade geometry indicate different aspects of program within a single home, the townhomes shift in geometry as ownership changes from one unit to the next. The clusters of paired townhomes—with the odd, eleventh townhome existing as a freestanding structure— are each topped by one of two halves of a thickened, sloping gabled roof plane. These roofs extend beyond the exterior walls of each unit and are wrapped in the same blonde cedar wood as the single-family homes. The roof planes turn down along the shared party wall between the units, giving each side a more individualized expression and massing. Like the detached homes, the townhouse units also feature groundfloor outdoor spaces that connect to an interior great-room configuration, except that here, bedrooms are located on the floor above. Each structure is clad in the same mix of blonde, gray, and black cedar planks.


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