Toro Canyon Home

Junipero Plaza

Las Casas Arrellanas

Serenity House

Mid-Century Modern

Polo Club House

PMSM Architects, Inc./Kristin Story, AIA    Serenity House Santa Barbara, CA

The new, 18-bed Serenity House is designed to be a place of comfort and dignity for palliative care and will take its place as the only residential facility with licensed hospice care on the Central Coast. The 5.5-acre, hilltop site provides the backdrop for a serene and sustainable building design with a residential scale and layout that is configured to emphasize patient and family privacy; each private room with its own amenities, bathroom and patio. The building is thoughtfully placed on the site to capture the spectacular views of downtown and the Riviera, but also to allow the site to visibly mask the building with its sweeping slopes, gardens, oak trees, and setting in nature.

The site preparation and stabilization for construction was extensive including the engineering of a soldier pile and lagging shotcrete walls. The driveway downhill slope was stabilized with a Mechanically Stabilized Earth wall. To accommodate adequate parking and conceal the visual blight of a parking lot, an underground garage was planned with soil excavation stored offsite at the Shoreline Church.

The major sustainable design features include two on-site 10,000-gallon cisterns to collect rainwater for irrigation, a landscaped bio-swale to filter storm water runoff, preservation of oak trees with replacement ratio of 1:5 and use of salvaged/recycled building materials. The project has obtained a 2-Star Level Rating (out of three) from Built Green Santa Barbara.

Project Size: 16,685 SF   Opening Date: Spring 2011