The butterfly roof is used brilliantly here to give a wonderful gestural quality to the space and it is impossible not to be impressed with the persistent quality of mexican craftsmanship and quality. Obviously the board forming of this concrete and the precise alignment of the times are all labors of love that make the difference in a project like this.

With a little bit more work, and perhaps a little bit more budget, I am willing to bet that the vertical supports could have been eliminated on the lake side. I don’t see why that roof cantilever couldn’t have been nearly self supporting? Likewise I am a little bit fuzzy on the kitchen; while I like the composition of the elements, at the end I think it might have been nicer not to see the fridge, hood, etc. Finally, I don’t quite get the downstairs spaces (at least from the photographs). The family room seems of lesser quality than the rest of the architecture and the fenestration works less well here. The juxtaposition of the square window and the unframed skylight just doesn’t reach the heights of the rest of the architecture.

In all this is an outstanding house.

Terry Glenn Phipps