On a lush 15,000-square-foot site with 800 trees (600 of which are saplings) and hundreds of native plants, it was important for the client and the design team to conserve and strengthen the parcel’s natural qualities. “The idea was to break the house up into smaller pavilions that sit lightly on the land and to connect them with bridges, two glazed and the other exposed to the elements, so it is almost like living in a small park,” notes Jacob Brillhart.

The 4,100-square-foot residence consists of four connected volumes (two that have two stories and two one-story) arranged in a U-shape around a central courtyard. The design utilizes a structural-steel system that rests some 30 inches off the ground, to keep existing root networks intact. Each volume is enveloped in charred-timber panels and large expanses of hurricane-grade floor-to-ceiling windows or sliding doors. The latter open to the courtyard, or to porches and balconies, shaded by cantilevers or operable ipe louvers. Narrow floor plates throughout ensure ample cross ventilation and natural light.

The house was built for a young couple, Theodore and Belinda Stohner: he moved to Miami in 2016, after being based in the office of an investment-management company in London for many years, while she, a professional violinist and leader of a string quartet, has lived in Miami for decades. Theodore, with an interest in design, had long wanted to build his own home. In 2018, on a walk, he serendipitously encountered the plot of land for sale, which was being used as a garden by an adjacent property and had grown wild and junglelike.

Those qualities, attractive to the would-be buyer, rendered the site prohibitively expensive to develop; the city requires payment for every tree that is knocked down. “There was no interest from the developer community, so, on a lark, I offered the owner half of what he was asking for, and, surprisingly, he countered with a slightly higher price,” says Theodore. “So, I went home to Belinda, and told her, ‘I think we just bought some land.’”

Theodore was familiar with the work of Brillhart Architecture, having read of their DIY Miami home, Brillhart House, when it was published. The residence, Jacob explains, was heavily inspired by the Paul Rudolph and Ralph Twitchell–designed Healy Guest House (1950), in Sarasota, Florida. The project, like the Morningside Residence, is bordered by local flora and features an open floor plan, with building-length glass walls that are shaded by overhangs and louvered shutters. Those lessons and moves are applied here, though at a larger scale and with more luxurious, but not ostentatious, finishes.

The Morningside Residence is accessed from the south, through a gateway. The garage is located to the immediate west, with a home office above it that can double as a guest bedroom. A one-story volume on the eastern flank of the lot is linked to the garage via an open walkway, and it contains the complex’s sizable kitchen—the Stohners are enthusiastic cooks, often inviting friends—and a guest bedroom. Countertops and the kitchen island are surfaced in a coral-white travertine, and the cabinetry is fashioned of black walnut. The upper cabinet faces are coated with a gray cement-based plaster, used as a wall treatment throughout the home.

A glassed-in hallway leads to the third volume, the house’s primary living space. It is an approximately 800-square-foot room that can be opened to the elements through courtyard- and rear-yard-facing sliding doors. Within, the design reflects Theodore and Belinda’s interests. For Belinda, there is enough room for a grand piano and for her quartet to perform, and the space allows Theodore to put his collection of modern furniture (designed by Donald Judd and Charlotte Perriand, among others) to good use; together, they can entertain guests or work on jigsaw puzzles at their John Pawson–designed 13-foot-long dining room table. Above, on the volume’s second story, there are two bedrooms with a Jack-and-Jill bathroom in between.

The primary bedroom is located within the northernmost volume, connected to the living space through a glass-enclosed hallway. It is, like the other bedrooms in the house, sparsely decorated, save custom-fabricated bed platforms, with nightstands, designed by Theodore. The near-Spartan quality of the bedrooms could prove too severe in a less well-positioned project, but the design team, in maintaining a minimalist approach, successfully allow for plentiful outward views of the site’s landscaping, complete with reflecting and lap pools, to command all the attention.

Visiting on a sweltering July afternoon, I stayed cool on the shaded second-floor balcony as a breeze rustled the leaves of the courtyard’s oak and pine trees. Several geckos wound their way across multiple sets of louvers, and a sandhill crane flew overhead. Biscayne Boulevard, heavy with traffic and just 150 feet west, felt worlds away.