2009’s Ultimate Home Remains One of the Most Amazing Homes Ever Built

As we continue to celebrate 2016’s Ultimate Home, we take a look back at one of our all-time favorite Ultimate Homes, from 2009, which originally appeared in Robb Report’s April 2009 issue and remains one of the most stunning examples of home design to ever be included in the pages of Robb Report.

From the beginning of the 32-month design-and-build process for this 32,000-square-foot home in Palm Desert, Calif., the primary goal of the homeowners—a couple in their 70s who divide their time between Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and California’s Coachella Valley—was to create a structure that would meld into its mountainous surroundings.

Prominently situated on one of the few buildable hilltop sites within the Bighorn Golf Club, the home had the potential to mar the otherwise untouched landscape. “The husband told me that he wanted to be able to be on the golf course down below and have to point out the home to his friends in order for them to find it within the mountains,” says architect Guy Dreier, who designed the home, most of its furnishings, and the grounds. “The last thing he wanted to do was put a big white monument up there.”

Dreier’s solution to this challenge is a dramatic orchestration of overlapping planes and serpentine walls that form a series of asymmetrical pavilions. “The home has 16 automated sliding-glass window walls that open up to the outdoors,” he says. “There’s no real line between indoor and outdoor space—it completely merges with the desert.”

Guy Dreier Designs, 760.568.3670, guydreierdesigns.com