style pioneers Mariposa’s first house claims high ground for desert design in Rio Rancho. Su Casa/AIA Albuquerque Residential Design Honor Award Winner
The Bryan residence in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, forms an almost geologic attachment to its desert setting. When the owner-builder couple moved into this Jon Anderson-designed home, they were the first residents of the new Mariposa community. The elegant home won an honor award in the 2007 Su Casa/AIA Albuquerque Residential Design Awards competition.
Zach and Susan Bryan (left) chat with Jon Anderson on the patio. Some view, huh?
The southeast view toward the Sandia Mountains was one nonnegotiable design element.
Deep, well-lit shelves flanking the entertainment center hold Zach Bryan's collection of amazing geological specimens.
Lots of glass and the open plan reinforce the strong attachment to place, which was important to the Bryans' concept of home at Mariposa, where open space borders their lot and unrestricted views beckon in every direction.
Long ago Winston Churchill said, “First we shape our houses, then they shape us.” Had Sir Winston known Susan and Zach Bryan, he might have modified his quip to, “First we shape ourselves, then use ourselves to shape our houses.”
It’s difficult to say what’s most impressive about the Bryans’ new house—the building itself, the views, or the young couple’s clarity in deciding what they wanted, their determination to go after it, and their persistence in getting it at a price they could afford.
There’s no indication they ever wasted much time dithering. While both graduated from Albuquerque high schools and went to the University of New Mexico, they actually met on Interstate 40. Zach was cruising along, his bike in his vehicle. He spotted a girl driving a Jeep. “She was cute,” he reminisces. “I smiled at her. She smiled back.” More smiling ensued.
Luckily for traffic safety, they pulled off the highway before chatting for a bit. Susan eventually gave Zach her phone number. No going back after that.
Nor did they procrastinate about buying a building lot. Two and a half years ago, the day homesites went on sale in Mariposa, they bought property near the north end of the 6,500-acre master-planned development. Susan and Zach’s new house requires a commute to his job as a firefighter and hers at the Albuquerque Associated Press. Luckily the location puts them closer to their favorite recreational areas. Their fondness for the outdoors shows up in their specifications for their new garage—besides spaces for three vehicles and a Vespa scooter, the list includes spaces for snowboards, paint ball equipment, and six bicycles.
Along with 4,500 acres of houses, Mariposa is slated to preserve more than 2,000 acres of open space, a big factor in the Bryans’ choice of lot. Longer and narrower than other lots nearby, the property runs downhill from northeast to southwest. An arroyo crosses the southwest end, while a hill shelters the northwest exposure. Both hill and arroyo are designated open space, ensuring that future structures won’t block the magnificent views.
Simple elegance
The Bryans had no doubts either when they chose their architect—and chose him and chose him. Jon Anderson said the young couple, just starting out, were a little shocked at first hearing his architect’s fee. But they had seen Anderson’s designs in magazines and on his website, and his clean-lined, sophisticated modern idiom was the look they wanted. Intrigued by the building site, the program, and the couple, Anderson finally agreed on the Bryans’ third call to “streamline” the design and development of construction documents along with his fee.
Architect Jon Anderson spent a lot of time on the site with the Bryans, absorbing the views and terrain and the areas that would be preserved for open space. The resulting design, Anderson says, feels “locked into” the site. His first layout turned the long, major expanse of the house directly south toward the arroyo, incorporating strong overhangs to shade the south-facing glass in summer. But that orientation didn’t frame the mountains through the living area windows, a no-compromise requirement.
The basic design went through more than 20 iterations before it was exactly what the Bryans wanted, at a price they could afford. The completed house runs along the southeast-northwest axis of the lot, with the garage facing approximately east. The entry sits at the point of an angle, separating the garage from the long façade of the house, which faces southeast. From the high-ceilinged entry, the dining room, kitchen, and living room stretch along the façade. The heavily glazed front wall seems to open directly to the front terrace and a spectacular view of mesa, valley, city, and mountains beyond. The owners’ suite opens off the circulation space along the back of the rooms.
Also from the entry one can reach two guest rooms with accompanying closets and bath. As opposed to the grandeur of the view from the public rooms, these spaces feel sheltered and intimate. Anderson says that Zach and Susan wanted the guest rooms to be both private and accessible. Currently they use one of the rooms as an office. Both bedrooms, along with the main suite, open onto a private patio tucked between the house and the hill behind it. The high desert landscaping already looks well-established. Much of it was already on the site, and other plants were dug from their locations within the building footprint and transplanted a few feet away. The Bryans were very careful to prevent any unnecessary driving around the site during construction, so the lot’s natural vegetation is remarkably undisturbed.
The price is right
If the square footage in the large garage is included, the house cost an amazing $91 a square foot for all labor and materials, including site work. Strategies for reducing cost without compromising quality began with the preliminary design and carried through to the finish work. The long views and efficient layout and zoning, along with the terraces and patio that extend the living area, make the house feel large, but it totals slightly less than 2,300 square feet. Anderson kept the house simple to build by using a rectilinear footprint and modular dimensions that reduce waste from trimming materials to size. The larger spaces of living room and garage are spanned with roof framing members engineered from plywood and small-dimension lumber that keep down both cost and pressure on old-growth timber.
All fixed windows, such as those used in the 11-foot-tall, 20-foot-long system in the living room, are storefront, a commercial window system that can cover large areas economically. Operable windows are inset. Anderson chose the glazing both for cost and for reasons of design. He says that the smaller divided panes typically used in residences wouldn’t give the same feel.
Much of the cost savings came from the work done by Zach, Susan, and their families. Susan’s father, Eugene Montoya, has a sheetrock company, so he did most of the interior walls. The door and window openings are finished simply and cleanly with sheetrock returns. Zach and Susan also worked on the sheetrock as well as other trim work. But the most impressive of their achievements is the massive fireplace and chimney. They wanted a certain look for the enormous cast-in-place installation, so they cast it themselves in one lift. “Whoa, the hydraulic pressure at the bottom of that form!” Zach comments, looking at the monolith, beautifully textured with the subtle grain of the wood used for the form.
Other finishes also reflect astute design and careful craftsmanship rather than truckloads of cash. The handsome flooring is sealed concrete, left its natural color. The marble used lavishly in both bathrooms was originally for another job, available at discount prices because it wasn’t exactly what the other owner had in mind. The kitchen countertops are made of dark granite floor tiles, which Anderson said cost about one tenth as much as the more commonly used monolithic granite slabs. The exterior is all stucco, a specially formulated light green that Zach chose to match the color of sage against the light reddish tan earth. Anderson says stucco performs well in this climate and is cheap relative to other exterior finishes.
The stucco isn’t the only green feature of the house. According to Anderson, “Green building and environmental sensitivity is a hot topic right now, but all the promotion in the news is for techniques architects have used for years.” Anderson specified an insulated glass with low-E coating for the Bryan house. Turning the most heavily glazed wall to the southeast instead of south reduces overheating in the summer, and the operable windows placed on northwest and southeast sides facilitate natural ventilation. The thermal mass of the concrete fireplace and floor help stabilize interior temperatures, keeping the house comfortable and last winter’s fuel bills low.
When it came time to furnish the home, Zach and Susan actually built some of the furniture themselves, including the dining table and living room coffee table. “Susan designed it,” Zach says. “She has the eye.” Each elegant, beautifully crafted table has a box-shaped niche built into the top of one wooden leg. Visible beneath the heavy, beveled glass top, each niche holds small mineral specimens Zach collected while getting his degree in geology. Along the walls huge, spectacular specimens from his collection fill the glass shelves of four custom-lighted displays, two of them flanking the entertainment center. Equally intriguing, if lacking such sheer gorgeousness, is Susan’s collection of old cameras, going back to at least the 1930s.
In November 2006 the Bryans became the first people to move into Mariposa. They moved into a house with the high standard of design and workmanship they wanted, with furnishings that reflect their lives and interests. It seems ideal. Zach often worked as a house sitter during his college days, becoming familiar with some very nice residences. Of his own new home, he says with a grin, “It’s like house sitting, it’s so nice.”
Laura Sanchez is a frequent contributor to Su Casa and with her husband, Alex, is author of Adobe Houses for Today, published by Sunstone Press.
Unless otherwise noted, businesses below are in Albuquerque, the area code is 505, and the prefix for websites is www.
Architect: Jon Anderson, AIA, Jon Anderson Architect, 764-8306, jonandersonarchitect.com. Designer: Jon Anderson; James Lucero, project manager. Builder: owners Zach and Susan Bryan. Interior design: owner Susan Bryan. Appliances: Wolf cooktop, wolfappliance.com; Jenn-Air refrigerator, microwave, and dishwasher, jennair.com; supplied by Builders Source Inc., 889-3001, builderssource.com. Bar stools: Eurway, eurway.com. Cabinetry: Canac, canackitchens.com; supplied and installed by Kitchen Designers Inc., 828-2555. Ceiling fan: Minka Aire, minkausa.com. Coffee table: owner-built. Concrete: footing slabs and retaining walls, Pete Montoya; mailbox, fireplace, and stepping stones, Zach and Susan Bryan; Albuquerque Redi-Mix, 831-0279. Countertops: subcontractor Gomez Custom Tile, 249-6200; materials from Architectural Surfaces Inc., 889-0124, and Arizona Tile, 883-6076, arizonatile.com. Dining chairs: EQ3, TEMA Contemporary Furniture, 275-2121, temafurniture.com. Dining table: owner-built. Doors: interior doors from Pacific Mutual Door & Window, 823-2505, pamudo.com; sliding glass door, Fleetwood Windows & Doors, fleetwoodusa.com. Electrical: Zamora Electric, 836-4755. Fireplace: firebox and flue by Jim’s Masonry, 237-9705, jimsmasonry.com; homeowners provided concrete work. Flooring: all floors are sealed concrete with saw-cut joints. Frameless shower enclosures: Wholesale Mirror and Glass, 345-6246, wholesalemirrorandglass.com. Framing: High Quality Framing, 220-4450. Garage doors: Garage Doors by Nestor, 897-5962, garagedoorsbynestor.com. Hardware: interior doors, Schlage, schlage.com; exterior doors, Kawneer, alcoa.com/bcs/ kawneer_namer/en/home.asp. Heating & cooling: refrigerated air, Thompson Heating and Air Conditioning Inc., 884-2675. Insulation: Garrity Insulation Inc., 345-1705, garrityinsulation.com. Landscaping: by owners; materials from Rio Rancho Stone Co., Rio Rancho, NM, 892-0087, rioranchostoneco.com, and Santa Ana Garden Center, Bernalillo, NM, 867-1322; irrigation from Southwest Piping Supplies Inc., 898-7473, swpipe.com. Lighting: general lighting supplier, Albuquerque Lighting, 345-2727, albuquerquelighting.com; pendant lights, LBL Lighting, lbllighting.com. Lumber: Lumber Inc., 823-2700, lumberinc.com. Minerals: personal collection, all found or traded for by owners; approximately two-thirds of the specimens are from New Mexico. Paint: Flynn Painting, 892-6446; Sherwin-Williams paint, sherwin-williams.com. Plumbing & radiant heating: Silverado Plumbing & Heating Co., 792-0511. Plumbing fixtures & hardware: Franke kitchen sink, franke.com; Grohe kitchen faucet, grohe.com; Kohler tubs, toilets, and sinks, kohler.com; Danze bathroom fixtures, danze-online.com. Roofing: Mudd Brothers Inc., 344-1030. Rug: Sam’s Club, samsclub.com. Sofa: American Home, 883-2211, americanhome.com. Stucco: custom color formulated to match the sage plants on-site, El Rey Stucco, 873-1180, elrey.com; subcontractor Mudd Brothers Inc., 344-1030. Wall system: wood studs and gypsum board. Windows: Storefront Specialties and Glazing, 884-6560, storefrontspecialties.com; custom-built from Kawneer components, alcoa.com/bcs/kawneer_namer/en/home.asp.