In most landscapes, novelist Willa Cather observed, the sky is a ceiling for the land. But in the Southwest, she mused, “the land is a floor for the sky.” With her artist’s eye Cather honed in on the delicacies of right relationship, of what should properly pay homage to what.

Scott Patrick Schiabor understands such things. Widely recognized as a master of siting, the builder designs his custom homes not to capture the most stunning vistas in Albuquerque, but rather to revere them. Whether at High Desert in the Sandia Foothills or on the banks of the Rio Grande at Oxbow Village, the famed views of Scott Patrick Homes are not so much an amenity of the home as the home is a beholder of the views. Right relationship.

Schiabor works with geography like a horse whisperer works with beasts. Never one to lasso a view in a window and hang it on the wall trophy style, the builder encourages vistas to expand in all their glory throughout a home. He accomplishes this most spectacularly through a signature feature of Scott Patrick custom homes: the sweeping curvilinear wall of tall vertical windows in the great room. The curve cradles the room like a protective arm even as the expanse of windows invites the gaze to wander for miles and miles. The effect is at once comforting and liberating. Schiabor also takes care to work with the land’s natural features, never against them. Oxbow Village is a prime example of this.

When Altura West, the developer of the Oxbow Communities on Albuquerque’s West Side, approached Scott Patrick Homes to design one of the three subdivisions, Schiabor did what he always does at the beginning of a building project.
“First, I walk the land,” he says. The way he inflects the phrase, respectfully, deliberately, you can almost hear capital letters. The builder’s peripatetic survey of the Oxbow Village site revealed a significant design challenge: The land dropped 50 feet within 200 feet. Forty homes needed to be situated on the long, steep strip. Schiabor never even considered building two-stories. “People don’t want them,” he explains. “From our experience, what people want is a good lot with a great view.” Schiabor and his team delivered in spades.