On what is ordinarily a quiet cul-de-sac near San Ysidro Creek in Montecito, the sound of big machines breaking rocks echoes from a makeshift quarry somewhere in the middle distance. Less than a hundred yards from this noisy scene of destruction and recovery, an unusual new house nestles among old oaks on a one-acre lot overlooking the stream bed.
Cathie Partridge’s home — the “branch house,” as it is known to its owner and to the team that created it — was designed and built before the recent disasters, but it embodies many principles and practices that residents of this volatile region must consider in the future. The structure’s nickname reflects both its tree-like design and the degree to which it represents a deliberate departure from the building philosophy behind the traditional ranch house it replaced.
Planted within an asymmetrical footprint dictated by the protected drip lines of the property’s many centuries-old oaks, this sturdy yet delicate residential structure is not a boulder-proof bunker, but rather a serious attempt to go with the flow of Montecito’s active alluvial plain. Lifted off the ground in many places and secured by concrete piles sunk in holes drilled through the site’s sandstone, the copper-tiled branch house perches on the site’s natural grade and within its ancient oaks like a tree house crossed with a spaceship.