A double-height oceanfront living room with floor-to-ceiling glazing onto the water

Work / Malibu Road Beach House

Malibu
Road

Location
Malibu, CA
Type
Private residence — oceanfront

A narrow lot that trades depth for light

Malibu Road lots are narrow, deep and hemmed in on both sides. The whole design problem is getting daylight past the middle of the plan without giving up the rooms that have to sit there.

The answer here was vertical. A double-height volume at the ocean end pulls light back through the section, and the stair is placed to borrow it rather than to block it. Bedrooms take the upper floor where the view clears the neighbouring roofs; the ground floor is given over to the rooms that benefit from being close to the sand.

On a beach lot the material palette is not an aesthetic decision. Salt air sets it.

Height instead of width

A double-height volume at the ocean end carries daylight back through a deep, narrow plan.

The stair borrows light

Placed to sit inside the tall volume rather than against a party wall, so it lights the middle of the house.

Bedrooms up

The upper floor clears the neighbouring roofline, which is where the view actually is.

An open stair rising through a double-height volume beside full-height glazing
The stair sits in the light rather than against the wall

Drawings

The set is documented. It is not yet published.

Plans and sections for this project are documented but not yet released. They will be published here once client permission, credits and photography rights are confirmed.

A bedroom with full-height glazing onto the ocean and a low bed
Primary bedroom — upper floor, above the neighbouring roofline.
A dining area beside full-height glazing with the ocean beyond
Dining — held at the glazing line rather than in the deep centre of the plan.

Materials

Chosen to survive salt

White oak, plaster, honed stone and glass. Two hundred feet from salt water, anything that needs maintenance will not get it — and a short palette makes a mid-construction substitution something you can judge on site instead of re-specifying.

Full specification on request

Photography

A glass house on the sand

Malibu Road from the water: the glass house among its beach-front neighbours below the mountains
From the water
The ocean elevation at night, three lit floors of glass above the sand
Ocean elevation at night
A long terrace and glass-floored water channel at sunset, with the coastline beyond
Terrace and water channel at sunset
The ocean terrace at sunset, outdoor sofas along a glass balustrade
Ocean terrace
The double-height living room: a timber-panelled wall with fireplace and bar, and full-height glass to the ocean
Double-height living room
A seating group of curved lounge chairs set against floor-to-ceiling ocean windows
Sitting area
The side walkway at dusk, a lit glass-floored pool running between the curved glass stair tower and the ocean
Side walkway at dusk
The upper walkway beside a glass-sided lap pool, with stairs dropping to the beach terrace
Lap pool walkway
The primary bedroom looking through two walls of glass onto the ocean
Primary bedroom
The primary bath: a long stone vanity under a round mirror hung against the ocean glazing
Primary bath
The beach elevation in daylight, the glass volumes set above the sand
Beach elevation

Services used on this project

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