Sitting high above the Del Mar Race Track and the San Dieguito Lagoon sits a modern facing North West looking across the coastline. Much like a child’s fort where you can see out but the world cant see in, the home is nestled so well within the hillside and landscape that its barely visible unless you know where to look. But looking out, the owner can watch heron’s landing in the lagoon, place bets with binoculars watching the horse races, and give their buddies the surf report from their pool deck. Any disturbed areas during construction we replaced with native planting right up to the walkways and retaining walls surrounding the house, to interplay the architecture with the natural ecosystem. We were a little more liberal with exotic non-natives in planters around the home, to create varying textures and colors in smaller spaces. The pearl of the design is the courtyard koi pond the home wraps around on three sides. Floor to window ceilings surround the pond so you can see the koi swimming from almost any room in the house. I will forever be grateful to Cy Kackstatter (formerly of Earthtek) and Paris Dawson (Owner of Earthtek) for taking a chance on a young designer and business owner.