The home is situated in a paradigmatic California landscape of golden rolling hills with live oaks and valley oaks. We wanted the residence to look like it had always been there--like it was part of the mountaintop. We accomplished this by creating a garden in which the house reclines comfortably. A dozen new oak trees were placed to create shadows and thresholds through which the building can be viewed. In order to make an elegant and effective landscape, drought-resistant grasses were introduced, as well as a minimum number of trees to blend the graded slopes into the rolling hills.