Design: Michael Folonis, Michael W. Folonis and Associates; Photographs: Claudio Santini. Telluride author Michelle Kodis has brought us some inspiration for turning outdoor spaces from ordinary to extraordinary. The following case study is excerpted from Michelle’s gloriously-illustrated book Ultimate Backyard: Inspired Ideas for Outdoor Living (2006, Gibbs Smith Publisher; reprinted with permission of Gibbs Smith). Challenge: A narrow, sloping lot on a busy corner and the request for a small house with dramatic indoor/outdoor connections. Result: A house that wraps around a private courtyard and engages with the outdoors from every room. The owners of this modest one-bedroom house, located just six blocks from the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California, are originally from Wisconsin, where year-round indoor/outdoor living presents obvious climatic challenges. When the couple decided to retire to California, they hired architect Michael Folonis to design a small, low-maintenance house that would frame a view from every window and present opportunities for outdoor connections at every corner. Aside from these initial challenges, Folonis also had to contend with a narrow, sloping site and a busy corner location. Folonis responded with a streamlined 1,300-square-foot building organized into three sections: a carport, guest room and bath on the lowest part of the slope, followed by an art gallery, patio and garden in the center of the building, and a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom on the highest part of the site. The sections progress up the slope in two-step increments, and the house as a whole turns its back on the street, wrapping around an inner courtyard on the less-exposed side of the property.