9. The Terraced Hill House
Hills are not obstacles; they are architecture waiting to happen. I carved this house into a terraced hillside, three levels stepping down the slope, each with its own garden and its own view. The top floor is the bedroom, the middle the kitchen and hearth, and the bottom opens onto a patio with a stone oven and a table set for dinner. Stone stairs connect them, and the whole thing is wrapped in flowering vines. From the valley it looks less like a house than like the hill decided to be beautiful.