Project 0794: Pool House Entertainment Center, Yountville, California, 1987

Scope and content:

Design, construction drawings and supervision of entertainment center and pool house project.

Extended Description: In designing a pool house to be located on an old campsite of the Wappa Indians, Willis responded to the owners' desire to preserve a rumored burial mound by reinventing a bit of history. Nomadic gatherers and hunters, the Wappa tribe had left little evidence of their cultural traditions or imagery. Through the use of universal mythical images -- such as the sun, eagle and sky boat -- Willis recreated the spiritual journey of the ancient tribe in stucco bias relief on the pool-house facade and through the design of a memorial sun marker.

Located beside an existing swimming pool, the pool house was designed to accommodate casual pool-side entertaining as well as the functional necessities of showering and dressing, Willis used the golden section to generate all parts of the building form, modulating the two squares of the floor plan with a trace of the roof to derive three distinct spaces. In the vaulted center section, sliding doors are pocketed into the walls, dissolving the boundaries between pool and house.

Access and use