A Stand-Alone Home Office That Makes Work Feel Like Play

Swatt + Partners design a modern structure for productivity and creativity in the heart of California.

Writer Beth Hitchcock

One property, nine acres, two buildings, two different homeowners—that’s the calculus behind this home-office structure near Healdsburg, a charming small town in Sonoma wine country. Several years ago, when new owners purchased a home built by Swatt + Partners, based in Emeryville, California, they approached the studio with an idea for phase two: a small office building in a remote location on the property.

Accessed down a pathway of offset concrete pavers just west of the main house—an award-winning, off-the-grid structure completed in 2008—the striking office elevates both the functionality and aesthetic of the residence. Encircled by a lush forest of Douglas fir, madrone, and oak trees, the building dances between a level pad of ground and a steep slope, seeming to hover above the hill.

The office is a wood-framed glass box supported by two cast-in-place concrete core structures on either side. In a interior reminiscent of California’s early modern masters, architect Robert Swatt—who leads the studio along with partners Miya Muraki and Phoebe Wong-Oliveros—clad the floor and ceiling in western red cedar boards. The effect is a seamless plane that gently flows outward, where floor-to-ceiling windows blur the line between indoors and nature. Observed from the outdoors, the windows appear as mirror glass, reflecting the property’s wealth of mature trees.

In the main space, a large wooden conference-style table allows for comfortable solo or teamwork, while a lounge area offers a spot to sit with a laptop. Along one particularly eye-catching wall, floating red cedar shelves mimic the grid-like structure of a stack of horizontal operational windows.

When it came time to complete the landscaping, Swatt + Partners enlisted Monterey’s Ground Studio Landscape Architecture, known for crafting environments that reveal a place’s essence. Included in the design are an infinity pool—the perfect spot for a contemplative break from the day’s tasks—rustic water features, and a spa nestled down the hill. In all, this idyllic compound gives new and inviting meaning to the phrase “work from home.”