The bedroom view is out two sets of windows

Sunset, April, 1991

Two windowed walls lie between this second-floor master bedroom and a great view. You hardly notice the inner wall, since its angular fir-framed windows start just 12 inches above floor level, rise to the open-beam ceiling, and extend almost the full 18 1/2-foot width of the room. But looking from here through a set of tall windows that flank a fireplace in the living room's outer wall, owners Cindy and Burt Oliver enjoy a wide, bucolic view. Besides scenery, the windowed inner wall provides the bedroom with daylight, air circulation, and acoustical privacy. It gives a sense of separation from the slender living room, which is nonetheless allowed to rise to the 24-foot-height of the roof's ridge. The bedroom wall is itself more than 9 feet tall at its peak; its angled upper edges drop with the pitch of the roof Divided into three bands, it has fixed panels of glass across its top and bottom levels, and a row of 36-inch-high operable windows in the center. These windows swing open into the living room space to establish a pathway for air circulation-and passive solar efficiency.

In winter, warm air from the south-facing living room can rise, flow into the bedroom, and return to the lower floor through the stairwell. In the summer, hot air can rise to the second floor and exit the house through exterior-wall windows and skylights.

Below the bedroom, the 16-foot-wide living room shares space volumes with a 10by 12-foot open kitchen. This makes both rooms seem more spacious than they really are.

Architect John Evans of Half Moon Bay, California, designed the house. 1--l