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House Beautiful’s Archive Dive feature revisits its 1979 Design House of the Year, a Las Vegas home organized around a central courtyard pool. The feature recounts details of the design, including the work of architect William Turnbull Jr., designer Ristomatti Ratia and House Beautiful editors, as well as the use of courtyard views, trellises, fabric and soaring rooms.
House Beautiful has published an Archive Dive feature about its 1979 Design House of the Year, a home in Las Vegas planned around a central courtyard pool. The article describes shade-filtering layers and a verdant garden oasis in a desert setting, alongside the work of architect William Turnbull Jr., designer Ristomatti Ratia and the magazine’s editors. It also describes the home’s building materials and custom-designed interiors, including vivid textiles.
The home was built on a sandy, treeless site in Nevada. Its plan turns inward: rooms look toward a courtyard with a pool and palm, while fabric and trellises are described as filtering sunlight. House Beautiful’s account describes the water as a cooling feature and outdoor areas within the home’s masonry walls. The garage served as a buffer from the road.
Turnbull, a San Francisco-based architect, used standard builder’s materials and custom-tailored the house with details such as battens and lattices. Ratia, identified in the article as Marimekko’s creative vice-president, designed custom furniture. The article also describes bright floral patterns and repeated grid motifs as themes in the interiors. The magazine says the project was intended to inspire builders; the American Wood Council was its co-sponsor. The builders were Connie Sommers, Duane Daum and Ernest Becker of Rancho Bel Air, Nevada.
The archive article highlights the kitchen as the house’s central link to the other rooms and courtyard. It also describes high ceilings, exposed beams, bedrooms as private retreats, and fabric canopies over seating and the dining table. In the master suite, mirrored closets concealed a Swedish Elfa storage system and led outdoors to a trellis-covered hot tub. The master bath included an open shower and was described as a celebration of water. These details are presented as features of the 1979 project, not as confirmation of the home’s current condition.
A Desert Home Built Around Its Courtyard
House Beautiful’s feature describes a house on a sandy, treeless site whose rooms look toward a central courtyard. It notes the pool, palm, fabric and trellis among the design’s features, along with the use of standard building materials and custom details. The article presents these choices in the context of the home’s desert setting.
The feature also records the magazine’s stated aim of offering ideas to builders and identifies the American Wood Council as a co-sponsor. Its descriptions of familiar materials and custom details provide a historical account of the 1979 project. The article discusses the desert site and outdoor areas but does not establish how widely the design influenced later homes.
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The 1979 Magazine Showcase
The house appeared in House Beautiful’s May 1979 issue as the magazine’s Design House of the Year. The current feature is part of the publication’s Archive Dive series, introduced by editor in chief Jo Saltz as a recurring look at stories from the magazine’s archives. Its account is based on the earlier magazine report by Susan Grant Lewin and archival images and captions.
The original design brought together Turnbull, Ratia and House Beautiful’s editors. It used repeated visual elements—Marimekko flowers, grid patterns, exposed beams and latticework—to connect rooms that otherwise had different functions. The article names product and material contributors, including American Olean tile, PPG glass and Simpson Timber redwood. These are details of the historical project; the archive story does not offer a present-day inspection or update on the property.
““Here food is prepared among family and friends.””
— Ristomatti Ratia, quoted in House Beautiful’s 1979 report
The Home’s Present Condition Is Unknown
The feature describes the house as it was presented in 1979, but does not establish whether it still exists in the same form, who owns it now or whether its interiors and landscaping remain intact. It also provides no current assessment of the building’s condition or evidence about how well its original cooling and shading features perform today. The archive account offers historical descriptions, not a recent site visit.
Further Archive Features to Come
House Beautiful introduced Archive Dive as a monthly series revisiting stories from its archives. The publication has not specified in the supplied material which project will be featured next. For the Las Vegas house, no restoration, sale or other current development is announced; the next confirmed step is the magazine’s planned continuation of the archive series.
Key Questions
What was House Beautiful’s 1979 Design House of the Year?
It was a Las Vegas home featured in the magazine’s May 1979 issue, planned around a central courtyard pool and designed for a desert site.
Who worked on the house?
The magazine credits architect William Turnbull Jr., designer Ristomatti Ratia and House Beautiful’s editors. Connie Sommers, Duane Daum and Ernest Becker of Rancho Bel Air, Nevada, are listed as builders.
How did the design respond to the desert?
The plan turned rooms toward a courtyard with a pool and palm. The report describes trellises and fabric filtering strong sunlight, alongside high ceilings and enclosed outdoor spaces.
Is the home still standing as it appeared in 1979?
The archive feature does not say. It documents the home as presented in 1979 but gives no current information about its ownership, condition or alterations.
Source: housebeautiful.com
