Blueberry Hill Architectural Compound designed and built by retired Cornell Professor of Architecture John Shaw. This compound comprises a two-bedroom, two-bath, 2680-square-foot house; a one-bedroom, one-bath, 1250-square-foot guesthouse; a rotunda, a root cellar, and a tool shed, all connected by six courtyards.

The ensemble was conceived and built as an island of tranquility in a rolling plain of sagebrush. Everything was carefully coordinated as a whole for both usefulness and appearance, including structures, landscaped courtyards, enclosing walls, driveways, and parking areas. The sagebrush comes up to the perimeter like waves to the shore. All structures and landscaping inside have a logical limit. There are no leftover, hard-to-maintain areas.

The compound is an updated interpretation of a Spanish hacienda with influences drawn from Taos Pueblo architecture. The main house was designed to use the construction system of an earthship, with solar heating. Its earth-filled tire-wall construction provides thermal and structural mass and a sense of solidity. Despite a long, low outside profile, inside the home has high ceilings along the entire length of a light-filled glass wall, which extends the interior space visually into private courtyards and distant mountain views.

The design is site-specific in many ways. Taos Mountain, the view to the east, is carefully framed by a window in the living room of the main house and by a large window over the kitchen sink in the guesthouse. These east walls recognize the grid of Conejo Road and are 30 degrees off the grid of the rest of the compound, determined by the best solar orientation. The main house is protected from the north by an earth mound (from excavation of the house and courtyards). The north wall of the guest house is the narrowest side and almost solid. Again, the inside space expands in height and width toward the light-filled glass wall to the south. An earth berm gives privacy to the inside spaces yet allows views of Truchas Peak.

Both the main house and the guesthouse are open, light, and spacious along the south side, with more closed spaces serving as insulation on the north.

A “mesa” runs through the glass wall of the guesthouse, connecting inside and outside. A berm rather than courtyard wall gives privacy to this open side but allows views of the distant Sangre de Cristo mountains.

From the outside, the profile of the entire compound is long and low. When one enters the main house, however, because the house is sunk as much as four feet into the ground (providing excellent thermal insulation), the space opens dramatically to a height of nearly 12 feet.

The property’s six courtyards were designed to be an integral part of the household, just as in a traditional hacienda. Each courtyard provides a different experience and potential for use. The entry courtyard presents low walls to the outside, but as one descends either steps or a ramp, the space becomes more enclosed from the outside world, and one discovers a pool with a bronze dog-head fountain, a flagstone terrace, and a garden of low-maintenance native plants. This courtyard is a wonderful place to sit or dine. A rotunda, or domed space, in this courtyard is near the front door. It currently serves as a storage area, although it would make a lovely book-lined study with a small window at sitting eye-level looking at the dog fountain.

The main south courtyard presents a low wall to the outside world, but from inside, that wall is seven feet high. A “mesa,” consisting of a platform inside the house and a planter in the courtyard, runs through the glass wall, visually connecting the inside and outside as well as providing a greenhouse for growing vegetables and flowers year-round. A wire fence encloses a dog pen in the southwest corner of the main courtyard. This area has a covered pergola for sun and rain protection. A dog door connects to the courtyard through the back door of the house. A root cellar opens onto the west end of the courtyard a few feet from the back door. It functions as bulk storage for produce, as it maintains a temperature of 50-60 degrees year-round.

The courtyard directly opposite and extending the walls of the living room is an oasis for flowers and vegetable gardens. It was built with forced perspective, in that it looks longer than it is because the walls slope lower and the space narrower at the back. It has a pool under a canale, which drains the guesthouse roof, and a path through the garden to the back door of the guesthouse.

The living room terrace is paved and has a pergola, a sturdy outdoor table, and a wall-enclosed alcove that could become a barbecue and/or potting shed.

A dog courtyard between the garden and the guesthouse has a dog door to the guesthouse.

The guesthouse entry courtyard has a partially covered pergola from the parking area to the front door. Like the main courtyard, it is graveled and landscaped, with a beautiful view of Taos Mountain, and is perfect for an outdoor sitting or dining area.

In addition to the six courtyards, there is a partially enclosed service courtyard behind the main house that has a tool shed and two walled trash and wheelbarrow enclosures. A small orchard is on the west side of this courtyard.

All of the courtyards were designed to be used as an integral part of the life of the compound, lending themselves to a variety of ideas for use and landscaping.

There is a twelve-volt high-wire lighting system in both houses. The main house was supplied with a set of twelve-volt batteries that can be powered by solar collectors, although at present, the batteries are powered by the grid. A front-door roof canopy, designed but not built, was to function as a support for the collectors.

The designer and seller of this home is John Shaw. Born in Abilene, Texas, in 1928, Shaw is an American architect best known for his role among the Texas Rangers, a group of architecture educators and theorists who revolutionized the teaching of modern architecture. After studying at the University of Texas, Shaw joined the faculty in the mid-1950s. Together with Bernhard Hoesli, Colin Rowe, Werner Seligmann, John Hejduk, Lee Hodgden, and others at UT, Shaw began to develop a modernist pedagogy that would have enormous influence on architecture education over the next four decades, as members of the original Texas Rangers went on to teach at Cooper Union, Harvard, the ETH in Zurich, Syracuse, and especially Cornell University, where Shaw joined the faculty in 1962 and taught until his retirement in 1995.