Client Brief:
A decade earlier, this family hired us to update their Al Beadle home in Paradise Valley. There was one small son then. A decade later, there are three boys under twelve and aging parents who want to be close. The house they had no longer fit the life they were living.
Location:
A large lot a few miles away in Paradise Valley held a small, unlivable structure sitting on top of a basement. In the desert, excavation is slow and expensive. That foundation, already in the ground, became the starting point for everything that followed.
Design Solution:
We designed two complete homes on one lot. The main house sits toward the front of the property, built above the preserved basement. The grandparents' home sits toward the rear, single-story and private. Between them, an open-air pavilion defined by slender steel columns and block walls holds the shared life of the compound: dining, lounge seating, a ping pong table, a television. Each home has its own outdoor kitchen and fireplace. The pavilion is common ground.
The main house echoes the midcentury sensibilities of the family's previous Beadle home. Burnished concrete block in a geometric pattern, large pocketing glass doors that dissolve the boundary between the kitchen, dining and living areas and the covered patio beyond. The basement beneath was kept as a flexible space for the boys to grow into, separate from the main living areas above.
The grandparents' home is quieter, with lighter cabinetry, sculptural hardware and a more minimal palette. Wider doorways and hallways, a curbless shower and blocking for future grab bars are built in from the start. Each home has its own entry marked by a circular oculus that pulls light into the threshold and tracks the changing of seasons through light and shadow. From the street, the compound reads as a single composition of stucco, burnished concrete block and black metal. The pool, hot tub, pickleball court, desert trail and grass play area are distributed across the property, creating different ways to be together or apart.
Result:
Full Circle is a multigenerational home for proximity and independence coexisting. The grandparents are nearby because they want to be. The parents have help when they need it and space when they don't. The boys have a relationship with their grandparents that visits could never build. A circular oculus marks the entry to each home. They came back to The Ranch Mine a decade later with a bigger family and a different life. Full circle.
