- Project: Nebo House
- Architect: Fuller Overby Architecture
- Location: United States, McDowell County, North Carolina
- Year: 2022
- Area: 2500 m2
- Photography: Paul Warchol
A Lakeside Retreat Anchored in Landscape and Light
Set within the dramatic foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and overlooking Lake James, Nebo House by Fuller/Overby Architecture is a quietly powerful act of residential design that reimagines contemporary living in dialogue with topography, climate, and human scale. Conceived as a permanent home for a retired couple, the project anchors itself into the steep site with a profound understanding of place, program, and architectural order—offering both solace and social adaptability.
Rather than presenting a monolithic façade, the house is experienced as a cluster of eight distinct volumes that behave like pavilions scattered along the hillside, each capturing specific views and light conditions. The composition unfolds as a layered foreground to the distant lake and mountains, creating spatial richness that transcends its modest footprint.
A Site-Responsive Strategy: Earthworks and Spatial Logic
The design begins with the site’s dramatic slope, which drops sharply toward the lake. Fuller and Overby responded by carving two retaining walls diagonally across the plot, establishing earthwork courts that become the architectural anchors for the house. These cut into the land, creating a spine from which the residence’s volumes extend and frame views back toward the water and surrounding hills.
The main living spaces are embedded into the hillside, with earth on three sides serving as natural insulation that significantly reduces reliance on mechanical heating and cooling. Clerestory windows and operable glazing allow daylight and breezes to enliven the interior while maintaining thermal comfort.
At the heart of the plan is a central courtyard, conceived as an outdoor room that divides the program into social and private wings. Spatially, this courtyard becomes an organizing gesture that fosters interaction with nature and allows the sequence of interior spaces to unfold with fluidity and purpose.
Volumetric Articulation and Architectural Intimacy
Unlike the stereotypical “big cabin house” often seen in wooded American landscapes, Nebo House is refined and measured. Its eight volumes articulate a choreography of programmatic intent: eastward for public and social areas, westward for private suites, linked by a hall that doubles as the mechanical and structural backbone.
Inside, generous glazing invites serenity and connection to the landscape. In contrast, intimate niches and material transitions—such as warm white oak cabinetry and polished concrete floors—provide tactile layers that counterbalance expansive views. A sculptural cantilevered staircase forms a spatial hinge, guiding vertical movement between the main floor and guest rooms above, capped by a skylight that brings daylight deep into the home.
Materiality: Cypress, Zinc, and the Tectonics of Place
Material choices are deliberate and resonant with the setting. The exterior is clad in dark charred cypress, which situates the pavilions within the woods and allows them to recede visually into the landscape. The patinated zinc roof echoes the subtle gray-green tones of Lake James and the forest beyond, establishing an understated harmony between building and terrain.
At key transitions and thresholds, amber-hued cypress inflects the volumes with warmth and tactility, while large tapered scuppers at volume joints elegantly express water flow and roof articulation. Together, these material and detailing strategies create a home that feels simultaneously robust and sensitive to seasonal light shifts.
Balancing Privacy, Community, and Domestic Life
Nebo House is designed with a duality in mind: it is sufficiently intimate for everyday living as a couple and expansive when entertaining family or guests. Sliding floor-to-ceiling glass panels bridge the living rooms with the courtyard, collapsing boundaries between indoors and out. Semi-private niches provide moments of retreat, while open social areas support gathering and conviviality.
Every functional decision reinforces the site’s narrative—an architecture that responds not through monumental gestures but through thoughtful modulation of form, space, and light. The result is a residence that is not only strikingly contemporary but grounded in its environment and the rhythms of daily life.
A Modern Lakeside Home of Lasting Presence
Nebo House exemplifies how architecture can be simultaneously site-attuned, spatially elegant, and life-affirming. Through its nuanced orchestration of volumes, materials, and landscape, Fuller/Overby Architecture has crafted a residence that resonates as both a retreat and a catalyst for connection—to nature, to each other, and to the architectural lineage of modern domestic living.
