After working on Santa’s Vacation Retreat I was in the mood to try another more modern house than what we usually design. Inspired in part by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, I wanted to design a hillside house that would make use of a creek and waterfall.

Creating the creek and waterfall in LiveHome3D was a bit of a challenge, but their new terrain tools made the hillside setting possible. I used their path tool to create the creek, as I could map it to the terrain. Adding a custom water texture to the path made it look roughly creek-like.

I wanted the house to have a dark exterior, so it is skinned much like a skyscraper would be, in glossy black metal and dark tinted glass.

As the house sits right on the edge of a steep cliff, I designed the swimming pool to be edgeless, so that it provides a nice reflection of the trees that surround it.

The house is entered on the fourth floor where there is the living room, dining room and kitchen in an open floor plan. A laundry room and pantry act as a buffer between the house and garage.

The other floors can be accessed either by using the circular stairways, or if you’re lazier there’s an elevator.

The third level consists of a library, home office, and a home theater. Below that is a small seating area that has the feel of being in a UFO, and another guest bedroom. Finally, all the way down to the first floor you will find the mechanical room. This floor is basically the foundation that is built into the rocks to provide support for the rest of the house.

Going back up, on the fifth floor there is a family room with a pool table, the master bedroom suite, and a guest bedroom suite.

The master bedroom has a 180° view of the forest, as does the master bath. A huge walk-in closet provides a dressing area as well.

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