GROWING UP IN YOSEMITE
The owner of Yosemite Cabin grew up spending summers and working seasonally in Yosemite National Park, staying with her family in their cabin in Wawona – a historic town within the park, near the South Fork Merced River. Over the years, she and her husband have continued this tradition; now, with their grown children starting families of their own, it felt like a natural time to replace the aging cabin with a house that could better accommodate a larger extended family, and ensure that she could share her childhood memories with a new generation.
COMPOSTION & LAYOUT
Building a house in Yosemite is a rare and exciting opportunity not without some significant challenges. The lot itself is extremely constrained by parcels owned by the National Park on all sides. Fitting the proposed program and maximizing the potential of the small lot led the design team to conceive of the building as a tight, monolithic form with a large, double height carve-out at the living room – a reference to the rock formations that typify the surrounding landscape. The erosion of the building on two sides creates a wrap around deck that faces sweeping views of the Sierra Nevadas, allowing both the outdoor and indoor spaces to flow together and feel much larger experientially than their functional square footage would suggest.
At every turn, the plan seeks to reinforce the building’s connection to the surrounding park by giving each room a distinct experience of the site: the second floor primary bedroom is located strategically to capture a stunning view of the Wawona Dome; a narrow window inside the second floor shower gives a peek-a-boo view of the woods, and a landing library at the top of the stairs features a window seat that looks out over the forest, evoking the feeling of being inside a treehouse.
MATERIALITY
The material palette is wholly of the landscape, allowing the house to feel at ease amongst both its wooded environment, as well as the eclectic setting of a small town within a National Park.
Dark vertical wood siding was chosen as the primary exterior cladding to blend the house into the surrounding trees as much as possible. Architectural details throughout are a riff on this theme: the pickets of the wraparound deck are the same material as the siding, and their spacing creates a distinct rhythm that provides a balance between enclosure and openness to views. The juxtaposition of the light and dark siding at the large carve-out recalls the variegation of the surrounding terrain and anchors the building to the site.
Inside, the main floor stair provides a focal point near the entry. A series of overlapping wood slats echo the verticality of the exterior siding and surrounding trees, while cleverly supporting treads that are fashioned from thick pieces of reclaimed fir. The impression is of a floating staircase that maintains the same balance of openness and enclosure found throughout the rest of the house. Warm wood tones and ample natural lighting work together to create a cozy place in the woods for family gatherings into the future.
Photos by Andrew Pogue Photography