The project was a complete restoration, renovation, and expansion of a 1920s bungalow purchased in 2012 for around $40K. The house was taken down to the studs and required a new envelope and MEP systems, entire interior renovation, and the addition of a new master suite. Demolition of the existing floor revealed a modest river running through the crawl space during rain events.

Renovation established a continuous, “shotgun” kitchen, living, and dining corridor, with thoughtful, space-efficient storage, laundry, and housekeeping solutions concealed behind a bank of elegant frameless floor-to-ceiling cabinets. The remainder of the existing structure is devoted to two bedrooms, a full-bath, and an office/library cleverly integrated into the landing & stairway leading to the new master suite. One exterior wall was removed to reestablish the home’s original full-width front porch.

Careful attention to the new envelope structure, insulation, and system selection dramatically improved the house’s energy and heating performance. Vinyl siding was replaced with a rain screen of unfinished, locally-sourced cypress, a natural material that is both beautiful and weather-resilient.

One of the client’s priorities was admitting as much natural light as possible. A combination of strategic window locations and translucent retractable shades allowed for maximum daylighting while maintaining privacy from nearby neighbors. Interior finishes comprise a spare but honest material palette that includes clear oak, southern yellow pine, stainless steel, white Alabama marble, and a prominent black granite peninsula. The guest bathroom features a custom floating vanity of live oak milled by the client and his brother.

The project’s name and much of its character derive from its siting on a small, idiosyncratic lot: 0.18-acres, wedge-shaped, with 30 feet of elevation gain from the street frontage to the very back corner of the parcel. In order to accommodate mandatory setbacks as the master suite expansion protruded into the increasingly narrow portion of the pie slice, new construction was rotated 15 degrees off the axis established by the existing structure.

The clients wanted to make working and playing in the outdoors a prominent part of their life in their house. The moment of rotation between old and new construction encloses a small open air courtyard in the heart of the home. Weathering Corten steel panels serve as retaining walls throughout the sloped site while simultaneously creating terraced garden beds. An outdated sunken driveway skirting the northern lot line was in-filled and converted to a linear orchard. And the steeply inclined front yard was stabilized with perennial native grasses and wildflowers. Today, the margins of this tiny lot produce an astounding quantity of annual vegetables and host more than a dozen varieties of fruit trees, vines, and bushes.