The Roscoe Mountain House is a ground-up home situated in the Catskills hamlet of Roscoe. The house’s layout and organization, as well as its palette of materials, were informed by the surrounding landscape and by 19th-century stone walls that terrace the property. These remnants of the region’s farming history emerged directly from the site’s topography, and integrating them into the design allowed the project to respond to both the natural and cultural conditions of the land, resulting in a deeply site-specific work.

The house consists of two discrete yet interlinking volumes that build off these existing stone walls, orienting the house toward a series of surrounding views visible through floor-to-ceiling windows and doors. Set into a hillside, the structure reveals these vistas in alignment with the walls and according to the needs of each space. The upper level is designed for entertaining, with window walls that create a strong connection between indoors and out. Housing the kitchen, living, and dining areas, and an open-air patio, it overlooks the adjacent lake and the gentle slopes of the catskills, as well as a landscaped roof that conceals the lower level. A stone staircase descends to this second volume, tucked into the hillside. Home to deafeningly quiet bedrooms and workspaces, it fosters restfulness and contemplation through the use of strong, solid materials such as concrete, and through views of the surrounding valley and gorge.