Hillside Farmhouse

Home built by JMA (Jim Murphy and Associates); designed by Howard Backen, Backen Gillam & Kroeger Architects. Photo credit: Tim Maloney, Technical Imagery Studios. This warm and inviting residence, designed in the California Wine Country farmhouse vernacular, for which the architectural firm is known, features an underground wine cellar with adjoining tasting room. The home’s expansive, central great room opens to the outdoors with two large lift-n-slide doors: one opening to a large screen porch with its spectacular view, the other to a cozy flagstone patio with fireplace. Lift-n-slide doors are also found in the master bedroom, the main house’s guest room, the guest house and the pool house. A number of materials were chosen to lend an old farm house ambience: corrugated steel roofing, rustic stonework, long, wide flooring planks made from recycled hickory, and the home’s color palette itself.