Tuscan Pavilion

A newly featured home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, shows how design choices tied to climate and wildfire risk can shape a house. Rather than one large structure, the architects split the home into three smaller buildings connected by outdoor pavilions and paths. That layout cut down on excavation, saved mature oak trees on the property, and left room to restore a native grassland that invasive plants had taken over.

Because the region faces both power outages and wildfire risk, several features were built in for resilience. The roof uses an unvented assembly, meaning insulation sits right under the roof deck rather than relying on attic ventilation, paired with Class A fire-resistant roofing to help block embers from getting in. The house also has no crawlspace, removing another gap where embers or pests could enter. Even the pool does double duty, serving as a backyard amenity and an emergency water source if firefighters need it.

The design also leans on passive cooling — deep window recesses, overhangs, and open-air breezeways that shade the house and move air without mechanical help. Materials were chosen to hold up over time and to match the landscape, including locally sourced stone meant to echo the wooded hills nearby. For homeowners in wildfire-prone or outage-prone areas, the takeaway is less about copying a custom architect-designed estate and more about the underlying ideas: sealing off vulnerable entry points, choosing fire-resistant roofing, and thinking about water and shade as part of a home's resilience, not just its looks.