FARM AND AWAY

AT AN OFF-THE-GRID RETREAT IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, AN ARCHITECT AND A GALLERIST HAVE CURATED A MODERN, RUSTIC GETAWAY WHERE THE REAL LUXURIES ARE THOUGHTFUL DESIGN, THE ABSENCE OF TECHNOLOGY, AND AN ABUNDANCE OF TIME.

- HUGH GARVEY

A country house can be a time machine. At least that's how Todd Hosfelt sees it: "When you come here, time slows down. One day can feel like a weekend. A weekend can feel like a week. When you go back to the city, you feel like you've been away forever."

It's easy to see why Hosfelt says that when you look out over the rolling hills and valleys of the property in Lake County, California, that he and his husband, Louis Schump, have transformed from a working walnut farm into a weekend getaway from San Francisco. Timeless, or at least ancient, is one way you could describe the view from the deck: There's no sign of any other home in any direction, no sound of traffic, just the rustle of a breeze through the grass. Coastal live oaks dot the hills. A striking boulder, moved here eons ago by glacial force, juts out of one hillock and is surrounded by smaller boulders and stones that have peeled off over time. Some of them line the winding paths that arc past the walnut trees, one serves as a step up to the deck, another is the floor of the outdoor shower.

Hosfelt runs Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco. Schump is an architect at global powerhouse Gensler. Together the two creatives have curated a country getaway that is, yes, as old as the ages, but also entirely new. "We're used to doing things custom," says Hosfelt. "We're willing to take chances and be experimental and are not interested in the conventional."