Coastal Ranch
A working ranch house for a winemaking family, written in board form concrete.
A working ranch house for a winemaking family, written in board form concrete.
The Ortega family farms thirty acres of avocados and small lot pinot noir in the Santa Paula hills. Their original ranch house was built in 1962 and had reached the end of its structural life. They needed a replacement that could host four generations during harvest, survive the canyon wind that funnels through the property every afternoon, and feel continuous with the agricultural landscape rather than imposed on it.
We drew a single story L shaped ranch with board form concrete walls on the windward side and a deep covered porch wrapping the leeward elevations. The concrete was poured in panels that carry the grain of the form boards, aging into the same palette as the adjacent avocado bark. Interior walls are full height plaster and rough sawn cedar. The roof is standing seam zinc with a four foot overhang on every edge. The program is distributed across one level with the harvest kitchen sitting at the center and the three bedrooms branching off a single long gallery.
Completed four months under the original schedule. The concrete walls test at an R value of 26 with integrated rigid insulation. The harvest kitchen has hosted two crushes and a wedding. The Ortegas report the canyon wind is now audible but never cold. Their HVAC runs less than three hours a day in summer.
This house feels like it was here before we were. That was the whole point.Ruben Ortega · Homeowner
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