A contemporary house near the Central Coast, California, town of Carmel aims to blend into the 18,000 acres of open land that envelops it with retracting floor-to-ceiling windows that show off the outdoor surroundings.
The property at 2 Rumsen Trace doesn’t have all that scenery to itself, sharing it with a number of neighbors as part of a planned development. The 8,500-square-foot house occupies just under 4 acres; most of the adjacent land and the other home sites in the neighborhood are within the Santa Lucia Preserve, a privately held conservation easement.
“The house is designed so the person inside can take in all these views,” Lisa Guthrie of La Tierra Realty, who listed the house at $14.5 million, said in an interview.
Architect Mark English nestled the house, built in 2020, between a grove of live oaks and valley oaks and arranged the living room to look out onto a meadow. The narrow road leading past the house is visible in the middle of the meadow, but the house can’t be easily seen from it.
The retracting windows, which slide open horizontally, are one way the house was designed to embrace its environment. Sets of vertical wooden slats that sit a few feet apart from the windows create exterior walkways. The slats have the functions of shielding the adjacent rooms somewhat from the sun and providing privacy to offset the large windows.
“Instead of having the slats close to the house like a screen, they separated them a little bit so you have this exterior corridor where all those windows and doors open up,” Guthrie said.
Inside, ramps provide easy access around the house, which slopes downward in sections along with the gentle hillside beneath it. The home has six bedrooms and seven full bathrooms, plenty of room for guests.
In the 1920s and 1930s, what is now the Santa Lucia Preserve was known as Rancho San Carlos. It attracted elites looking for a place to get away who congregated at the Hacienda building for meals and events.
The historical structure serves the same function today for the owners of homes on the property if they don’t want to cook. Guthrie said she emphasizes to prospective buyers other services that preserve staff offer, including filling up the fridges of second-home owners before they arrive for a visit, housekeeping and home maintenance.
The family selling 2 Rumsen Trace used it as a second home and as a base for playing golf at the Preserve and at famed nearby courses like Pebble Beach, according to Guthrie. They enjoyed the way the house lends itself to entertaining large groups; several patios provide ample space on the side of the house for gatherings.
“Here you kind of leave the world at the front gate,” Guthrie said. “When everyone’s there they can spend time together in a very relaxed way.”