g the house is evidence of the degree of success the architects had in fully appreciating the setting and adapting the structure to climate, light, color, and terrain.
The visitor's first impression of the house is of the organic relationship of the building to its setting. On a sunny day, the exterior's combination of woods picks up some of the green of the surrounding grass and plantings. The roof, which is not usually seen in photographs, also continues this impression. The placement of the house on its platform, rather than making the structure tower over the visitor, adds to the impression that it has grown from the landscape. The stepped arrangement of various planters and stairs, mostly covered with clinging plants, rises gradually, and asymmetrically, and the irregular structure seems to continue the growth in which it nestles. This is especially true of the rear of the building, where the rougher shapes of the stone walls, and the looser arrangement of plants, completely obscure any line that divides the house from the land on which it stands.
The viewer's second impression is of the way the house extends itself into the surrounding space. This continues the organic metaphor as the six solidly-placed rectangles of the entrance seem to be the starting point, a rectangular seed from which the rest of the house has taken off in various directions. The front door sits at the back of the only substantial flat, open space on the front of the house. Its regularity echoes the rectangle of space in front of it, and is reinforced by the placement of the four-sectioned window above it. But, the anchoring front
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