Cleverly Built Luxurious Ocean View Residence: The Gull House

It’s easy for a talented architect to express your most burning desire through the design of your home. Take for example this next dream house in Laguna Beach, California. Built for a plastic surgeon, the home is a 2,928-square-foot residence designed by Lautner Associates . The brief included the family’s need for practicality while the beauty of the ocean played its part. Constructed high on a cliff overseeing the beach, the Gull House is partly build into the cliff because of a height restriction requiring that the house rise no more than 15 feet above street level. The roof and parts of the north and south facades are covered with marine-grade stainless steel, while the other walls are adorned with stucko and rosewood panels.

Three storeys allow the space to be compartmented into a space for the family on the lower floor, while the lowest floor is reserved for the entertaining area. At the street level there is a practical garage and an additional bedroom. An acrylic sculpture by Lithuanian sculptor Algis Kuzma welcomes the household and guests at the entrance. Every room in the house shares the same outstanding feature: you can hear the Pacific Ocean from every corner. Glass framed deck surround the residence and a magnificent glass floor on the lower floor plan looks down into the kitchen below. This can be considered a skylight for the kitchen and a creative solution to the lack of light the kitchen would have been exposed to if there was no glass floor. Luxuriously placed and constructed, the Gull Residence also has a strong privacy system that can be switched on and off: the glass windows turn from clear to opaque to protect the private life.