Tahoe Truckee | Residential Design · Land Use Planning · Permit Plans
WALDEN HOUSE
WALDEN HOUSE
Juniper Hills Truckee California
POST + BEAM
RESIDENTIAL ADDITION
3000+ SF
4 BEDROOM
4 BATHROOM
OFFICE
GUEST SUITE
LOFT FLEX SPACE
NEW DECK
Project Team
Designer:
MASTRIDICASA
Contractor:
530 Builders
Structural Engineer:
CFBR Structural Group
Interior Designer:
Design Bar Truckee
Photography:
MASTRIDICASA
A substantial addition to a Dennis Zirbel post-and-beam home, designed to extend the original composition while opening the house to long views toward Floriston Pass and the Mount Rose Wilderness.
Set among Jeffrey pines on a knoll above Floriston Pass, the existing residence already had a strong identity and an established relationship to the landscape. The work added bedrooms, a guest en-suite, loft flex space, storage, a new deck, spa patio, and other improvements, but the larger challenge was one of continuity: how to expand the home without diluting what was already there.
The turning point came with a two-story glazed wall oriented toward the northern ridgeline, opening both levels of the addition to the view. That move brought sky, trees, and distant mountains into the new spaces while giving the addition a clear organizing idea of its own.
Solar studies, structural coordination, roof-overhang studies, and Title 24 analysis helped keep that gesture disciplined and buildable.
The result is an addition that reads as an extension of the original composition rather than a separate chapter — more open to the landscape, more generous in use, and still unmistakably part of the same home.
EXISTING HOUSE
The existing post-and-beam home already had a distinct identity: asymmetrical massing, deep rooflines, exposed structure, and a strong relationship to its wooded setting.
The addition needed to extend that character without simply copying it.
The open side of the house offered the logical place to grow, but placement also had to preserve the entry sequence, long views, and overall balance of the original composition.
The question was not simply where we could add square footage.
It was how the new work could feel as though it had always belonged there.
SITE PLANNING
The addition was shaped by the existing house, slope, trees, solar exposure, structural constraints, and long views toward Floriston Pass and the Mount Rose Wilderness.
A simpler form could have occupied the available ground.
But solving the square footage alone would have been the easy part.
The plan instead extends the existing circulation naturally through the house while using the addition to strengthen its relationship to the landscape beyond.
Here, the house and site had to be considered as one problem.
CONCEPT STUDY
During design development, the owners gave us a clear direction: open the addition strongly toward the northern view.
That request clarified the project.
We developed the two-story glazed wall through concept renderings, solar studies, structural coordination, and energy analysis, testing how much glass the composition could support while managing heat gain, roof overhangs, structure, Title 24 requirements, and construction cost.
The final concept established the glazed wall as the organizing move of the addition — visually open and deliberately simple, with considerable technical work behind it.
An addition is often won or lost at the seam.
Existing structure, roof geometry, stonework, floor levels, and new framing all had to reconcile without making the transition feel forced.
This is where the idea of extending the original house became a construction problem — and where careful coordination mattered most.
GLAZED WALL FRAMING
The two-story glazed wall began to reveal itself in the frame.
The large northern openings, the vertical relationship between the two levels, and the connection between the new volume and existing home could finally be experienced at full scale.
Structural coordination helped preserve the expanse of glass while limiting the amount of new steel and retrofitting required.
PRIMARY SUITE
TWO-STORY GLAZED WALL
This became the defining move of the addition.
The two-story glazed wall opens both levels of the home toward Floriston Pass and the Mount Rose Wilderness, bringing sky, trees, and distant ridgelines into the interior.
Making that amount of glass feel effortless required considerably more than simply specifying larger windows. Solar studies informed the overhangs, Title 24 analysis helped balance energy performance, and structural coordination allowed the opening to be realized with limited steel and minimal disruption to the existing post-and-beam structure.
What reads as a simple opening to the landscape is the result of several systems being resolved together.
FINISHED CONSTRUCTION
