Natural Instincts

Tapped by a creative family to design a home in the heart of the California desert, Aaron Schiller looks to the land

- —NICK MAFI

1. SONNY AND RIVES GRANADE WITH THEIR KIDS AT THE FAMILY'S DESERT HOUSE, DESIGNED BY SCHILLER PROJECTS AND REALIZED WITH DION+COLE. 2. LOCATED OUTSIDE PALM SPRINGS, THE HOME TAKES INSPIRATION FROM ITS EXTRAORDINARY SCENERY.

To build a home at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains is to negotiate a paradox: The natural beauty demands attention while the wind and unforgiving California sun require refuge. For psychotherapist Sonny Granade and her husband, the artist Rives Granade, this tension became the driving force in shaping their family retreat just outside of Palm Springs. Completed in 2024, the house sits at the edge of a mature olive grove and alongside federally protected terrain, ensuring their views will never be interrupted by anything but wildlife. Sonny, whose father is the celebrated American artist Ed Ruscha, grew up shuttling between Los Angeles and the high desert, where her parents each kept cabins. From an early age, she developed an intimacy with the arid topography that shaped her sense of home. “The desert is comforting to me and so familiar,” she says. So too is cutting-edge architecture. Sonny spent her childhood in an Arata Isozaki-designed residence in Venice, California, and wanted something for her own family that carried that same architectural spirit. She just needed to find someone to realize it.