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Minimalist Appeal for a Spanish Mission-Style House
Married designers pare down Arizona’s Spanish Mission-style architecture to its essence in this canal-side Phoenix home
The structure, which is next to the canal, has two simple gabled white stucco forms that are the same width: One houses the kitchen and living areas; the other, the master suite. Two tiny windows in each form bring in light while providing privacy along the busy street. The house has two entrances: one off the canal and another via a driveway court. The roof, made of rusted corrugated metal, mimics the red-tile roofs of Spanish architecture. The beige forms — in between the gables and to the side off the courtyard — are whitewashed brick.
The central courtyard with its whitewashed brick is anchored by a rusted-steel-clad outdoor fireplace that separates the living wing of the house from the sleeping wing.
Steel panels shade the great room’s doors in the summer. “We designed the custom sunshade pattern by starting with the gable form of the roof, then rotating it and repeating it, then custom cutting it,” Cavin says.
Find modern outdoor furniture
Find modern outdoor furniture
Similar to the missions of southern Arizona, the design opens out from the interior spaces to courtyards that provide additional living areas at different times of day, depending on the location of the sun. The pitched ceiling is stained tongue-and-groove hemlock.
The wooden frames of the glass doors are stained to match the ceiling. The great room floor is exposed aggregate concrete, “to bring in the color of the desert,” Cavin says. The kitchen anchors the cathedral-like space with dark cabinets; a rusted hood in the same material as the outdoor fireplace, extending to the ceiling; copper pendants; and Dekton countertops on the hemlock island.
On the master suite side of the house the ceiling is flat, as the space within the gabled form is used as attic storage.
Pale washed walls, terra-cotta-colored roofs, black painted window frames and rooms that open onto shaded spaces capture Arizona’s historic Spanish Mission style but with a fresh, minimalist sensibility.
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House at a Glance
Who lives here: Designers Cavin and Claire Costello
Size: 2,505 square feet (232.7 square feet)
Location: Phoenix
Designers: Cavin and Claire Costello of The Ranch Mine
Builder: Boxwell Southwest
When Cavin and Claire Costello found a trapezoidal lot next to a canal that winds through Phoenix, they decided to design a house inspired by the architecture of southern Arizona’s Spanish missions. Being modernist, they also reduced that architecture’s geometry and courtyard-centric plan down to its essence. “Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson has a front facade similar to this house,” Cavin says. “Two tall white towers on either side of the main entrance. This house is a pared-down version of that.”