Aidlin Darling Design Creates a Stunning Home on a Hill in Napa Valley

IIDA Award Winner for Residences

For Aidlin Darling Design and “passionate clients with exquisite taste and humble values,” according to co-partner Joshua Aidlin, this house, perched atop 10 acres overlooking California’s Napa Valley, is a phoenix rising from the ashes. Literally. The firm’s original design was destroyed by a wildfire midway through construction. Fearless, owner and architect were determined to rebuild, making the resulting 4,000-square-foot home both resilient and an homage to its owners, specifically, the entrepreneur husband’s rural Welsh roots and the wife, who’s transitioning from her high-power law career to a passion for farming. Ergo the project’s name, Three Gables. The moniker also serves as the organizing scheme, since the residence is composed of three structures, each with said roof formation and built of board-formed concrete, standing-seam steel, and glass, with weathering steel used for landscape walls at the open-air entry procession.

Each structure is dedicated to a family member. The main house is the project’s heart, containing the industrial kitchen and living-dining expanse with an oak ceiling and access to a pair of cantilevered decks. Upstairs, an open loft is conceived as a study area for the couple’s son. Similarly, the wife’s office is an airy expanse accessed by a rooftop bridge setting up a treehouselike environment. The husband’s retreat is conveniently located over the garage.

Aidlin Darling Design: joshua aidlin; peter larsen; ryan hughes; mason hayes; cherie lau; tory wolcott green; michael pierry; sean kakigi