ESSENTIALS
Firm Name: Anacapa Architecture
Principal: Dan Weber
Headquarters: Santa Barbara, California
Accolades: Forbes Architecture’s “America’s Top 200 Residential Architects,” 2025; Forbes Architecture’s “America’s Best-in-State Residential Architects,” 2025
House Name: Off-Grid Guest House
Location: Central California Coast
Area & Layout: 1,800 square feet; 2 BR, 2 BA
Architectural Photographer: Erin Feinblatt (erinfeinblatt.com), Aaron Leitz (aaronleitz.com)
Architects often talk about connecting houses to their settings. But it’s hard to think of an example so seamless as the one Anacapa Architecture devised on a remote stretch of California’s Central Coast. Conceived as a guest house for a nearby residence, the building burrows into the surrounding hillside and is concealed beneath a planted roof, making it barely visible among the emerald bluffs cascading down to the Pacific.
The 1,800-square-foot structure consists of two offset boxes bisected by a staircase that descends from the parking area above. The larger box is wrapped in glass and cantilevered over the hillside, delivering dizzying views from the living, dining, kitchen and bedroom areas within. The smaller volume contains a primary bedroom and bath oriented toward a window wall at one end.
“We worked carefully to position the structure within the natural contours of the property, preserving existing vegetation and reducing the need for significant site disturbance,” says architect Dan Weber, founder and principal of the Santa Barbara–based firm. Since utilities are scarce here, and the primary residence is several hundred yards away, the guest house is powered by a photovoltaic solar array; the surrounding berms help insulate the interior, as does the rooftop garden, which also reduces stormwater runoff. Large overhangs and retractable glass walls keep the interior shaded and breezy.
Inside, the material palette feels as primal as the setting, with exposed steel columns and concrete walls and floors tempered by the warm glow of walnut ceilings and cabinetry. Furnishings are spare, so as not to distract from the view, which can be engulfed in a dense veil of fog one moment, then clear to reveal an undulating carpet of green that stretches to the sea.
Anacapa has several other projects in the works that revolve around sustainability, resiliency and low-impact living. “The Off-Grid Guest House represents a growing interest among our clients in thoughtful, resource-conscious design,” Weber says. “And we expect that conversation to become even more important in the years ahead.”