The 8,000-square-foot house is a hive-like composition with light filtering in from every side, a garden courtyard with rooms placed around its periphery in low, “ground-scraping” symmetry. The entry wall is made from ceramic panels with a rust-red glaze. You enter on a teak boardwalk that passes through a ten-foot-wide opening in the ceramic wall and into a forecourt that’s landscaped like a semi-controlled wilderness. Rough flagstones, left over from the original house, were used to create a cross-axial pathway that leads to glass doorways on either side, while Crepe Myrtle trees provide privacy. A sun-drenched gallery wraps around the periphery of the main courtyard. Three bedrooms are strung along the eastern side, while a large kitchen and informal dining area command the west side. Two thirteen-foot-deep lightwells illuminate the subterranean level with recreation room, gym, guest rooms and a family media theater. The house opens to the back of the four-acre property through a formal dining room, library and living room with 12-foot-high windows that look out over the park-like landscape. The only part of the house that rises above a one-story height, is the master bedroom suite, a block-like extrusion of pale gray cedar that pokes up like a captain’s wheelhouse.