Cabo Corrientes, Mexico

When Seattle-based designer John Van Dyke visited Cabo Corrientes for the first time nearly a decade ago, he found a kind of place he thought no longer existed. The pristine mountainside and endless beach were easily accessible—located two hours southwest of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast—but far from the throngs of tourists. “It reminded me of Baja and Cabo San Lucas 40 years earlier.”

The house Van Dyke designed for himself, working with Puerto Vallarta–based TW Arquitectos, fuses modern influences and local building techniques in a pavilion-like structure perched on the cape’s rolling topography. A stonewalled entrance hall opens up to the singular public space of the upper level with unobstructed ocean views. There, a pair of parallel stuccoed walls features a combination of reinforced- concrete structural columns and adobe brick infill. While the northern wall is solid, openings in the southern wall are unglazed, the western face is left completely open, and the large living-area-cum-terrace culminates in a long rectangular pool. The indoor-outdoor spaces and the de Stijl geometry of the house’s volumes are a nod to Rudolph Schindler, although Van Dyke also aspired to evoke the minimalism of Mexican master Luis Barragán.

Two bedrooms on the lower level, just 50 feet above the beach, also face west toward the water, and custom-designed furnishings throughout feature low profiles to take advantage of the spectacular vista and sunsets. Rooms without views include laundry and storage, where upper-level furnishings are moved in anticipation of a storm or when the house is not in use.

Van Dyke wanted the naturally ventilated house to have little impact on its unspoiled surroundings. Rainwater is captured and graywater recycled. Twelve rooftop solar panels, out of view behind parapets, help generate more power than is used to fuel the stove, clothes dryer, LED lights, and backup generator. “I could not have designed this house when I was younger,” Van Dyke admits. “It takes maturing thoughts about design to achieve the kind of simplicity I was after.”