Hollow Creek House

A courtyard plan arranged around a lap pool and a single olive tree.

The lot is narrow and deep, with neighbors close on both sides. The house turns inward: every main room opens onto one private courtyard of water, timber and sky.

From the street the house is quiet: a long plaster wall, a recessed entry, and a timber screen that filters the light into the upper rooms without giving away a view.

Inside, the living room, kitchen and gallery each take one side of the courtyard behind full-height steel and glass, so the pool is the center of the plan and of the day.

The upper floor is wrapped in a perforated screen of oiled timber. By day it shades the bedrooms; after dark, lit from within, it glows warm over the water.