The Bolton-Schluter residence is located in the rural mountainous residential neighborhood of Topanga Canyon.  The wooded hillside lot is 75’ wide and 600’ deep with three large oaks that are protected by local ordinance.  The garage sits on the relatively level ground adjacent to the street.  The house itself “climbs” up the 40% slope upwards, achieving a 44’ elevation gain to the scenic views at the top.

The design concept for the Bolton-Schluter residence combined a strong theoretical approach with the rigid building constraints of the area.  The protected oak trees dictated the required angles of the stair, which, along with the natural angles of the contours on the site, and certain directional bearings in the landscape / horizon in the distance gave rise to a conceptual ordering system controlling the internal and external geometry of the house.