The Deep End

In a tranquil corner of Napa Valley, two designers create a hillside compound to host family (and unforgettable parties).

- Hadley Mendelsohn 

COOMBSVILLE, CALIFORNIA, IS A quick 10 minutes from bustling downtown Napa, but it feels worlds away. The region's newest American Viticultural Area (AVA), it has a unique volcanic soil that produces old-world style wine, and the quiet hills extend for miles. 

"It's totally private and frankly a little rustic," Justin Hafen says. As cofounders of the design firm HurleyHafen and exemplary hosts, he and his partner, John Hurley, were the perfect couple to steward a parcel of this unfettered landscape and share it with their friends. High on a hillside, they built a contemporary home that doubles as a venue for every kind of gathering.

The design of the house is forward thinking but conscious of its agricultural roots: A modern, low-slung structure was built with firesafe materials like steel but is set within a grove of centuries-old olive trees (many of which were craned in from another town).