Case study / Residential
Hill Section House. 1940s bones, 2024 build.
A 1940s post-war house on a hillside lot. The owners bought it for the location and the trees, not the original structure. They wanted four bedrooms, a daylit lower studio for the parent who works from home, a kitchen that opens to the back garden, and the existing front-yard live oak preserved at all costs.
The brief
Four bedrooms, one studio, save the oak.
2,400 square feet. Four bedrooms, two and a half baths. A studio level cut into the hill. Material palette restrained — stained cedar, board-formed concrete, white-painted gypsum, oak floors. Budget set at $1.4 million all-in for construction. Schedule: 14 months from groundbreaking.
- Bedrooms4 above + studio bath below
- MaterialsStained cedar · board-formed concrete · oak floors
- Construction budget$1.4M all-in
- Schedule14 months SD through CofO
- Non-negotiableThe front-yard live oak stays, with a 12-foot drip-line buffer
What we did
Kept the footprint. Stripped to the studs. Cut the studio into the hill.
We kept the original 1940s footprint and stripped the structure back to the studs. The new program added a 380 square foot lower studio cut into the slope, accessible from a separate entry path so the parent’s video calls don’t get crossed with the kids running through the kitchen. The kitchen moved to the back of the house. The live oak stayed.
Live oak as the fixed point.
We set the new front-entry sequence around the oak’s drip line. Foundation rework stayed at least 12 feet off the trunk. Arborist on retainer through framing.
No root pruning, no compaction
Studio entered from the side path.
Lower studio cut into the slope on the east side. Separate exterior entry. Acoustic separation between the studio ceiling and the kids’ bedrooms above.
STC-55 floor / ceiling assembly
Four materials, no more.
Stained cedar outside. Board-formed concrete at the foundation walls left exposed inside. White-painted gypsum on most interior walls. White oak floors throughout.
No tile except wet rooms
How it shipped
47 sheets, 14 months, 1.7 percent over GMP.
Forty-seven sheets in the final drawing set. Fourteen months of construction. The architect on the file walked the site weekly from foundation through punch list. Submittals came back inside three business days each. The project closed two weeks ahead of schedule and 1.7 percent over the GMP, which is the closest a project of this size has come to landing on its number in the studio’s history.
- Issued drawings47 sheets, all signed by Mara
- Site walksEvery Wednesday afternoon, foundation through punch list
- Submittal turnaround3 business days, on every one
- ScheduleClosed 2 weeks early
- Budget1.7% above GMP · the closest landing in studio history
Eighteen months in
What the owners said after a year of use.
“The studio works. The kitchen works. The live oak is still there. We don’t notice the details that worked — that’s the whole point — and the ones we asked about during construction are the ones the studio fought for. We’d hire them again.” Hill Section House owners