Video from a drone shows the mustard-colored house perched atop a hill in Jamul, looking similar to other custom homes in the area. But from the ground, this home’s uniqueness begins to reveal itself.
“I had never heard of anything like it. It was… It's an incredible concept,” Jeannine Savory said with a laugh.
Savory is the real estate agent in charge of selling the house, and the concept she’s talking about is what makes this house incredibly unique.
It is built around a 14-foot boulder. Savory’s been in the business for 25 years, but she said this is the first time she’s seen anything like this.
“Although I hadn't heard about it, as I started marketing it, so many people came forward and said, ‘Oh, I remember this. I've seen it in the past.’ I had someone say that they came and helped build it. It was like a community build when it was being done.”
That was in 2000. Architect Drew Hubbell designed the home, and if that name sounds familiar, it’s because Hubbell is the son of famed San Diego artist James Hubbell.
The younger Hubbell said the original owners had some very specific ideas — and at the center of it all was the boulder.
“They came with a book of about 20 pages of a building program, which is unique for a client… And one of them was the boulder behind me,” Hubble said. “It was really a spirit to the property for them. There was history of Kumeyaay being around the area and evidence of fires being lit underneath the boulder.”
The boulder sits in a shallow moat, a small waterfall providing a soothing sound throughout the great room on one side and the primary bedroom on the other. But the boulder and its moat provide more than an imposing presence.
“The moat serves another purpose in that it mediates the temperature swing along with the thermal mass of the boulder. So it keeps it in that low 60s range of temperatures,” Hubbell said.
Thermal mass is defined as the ability of a material, in this case the boulder, to store heat and release it naturally when the interior temperature dips. On the flip side, it provides a cooling effect during hot weather. The house has an old-fashioned cast iron stove for extra heating if needed, but there is no central heat or air.
There’s something else unique about this home that is out of sight – almost. Its walls are made of straw bales. The home follows a tradition of straw bale construction with a framed opening on a wall. It’s called a truth window, a way to see the actual straw. It helps the boulder and moat in regulating the interior temperature.
“We worked on this home throughout the summer when the temperatures were up to 100 degrees outside. When you came inside the home, it was always a real comfortable 78-ish. The cooling properties of it, combined with the heating from the exterior and then the superior insulation of the straw bale, it really did self-regulate to a nice, comfortable temperature,” said Savory.
At nearly 3,500 square feet, the home is not huge. There are two guest bedrooms, and the kitchen is part of the great room. But then - there are the outside spaces.
Small courtyards with fountains and seating areas are on different sides of the house. A pool and jacuzzi were added several years ago. On the west side of the home, there’s a Spanish style arcade. From there, you can see all the way to Point Loma - on a clear day.
Back inside, there’s something else more subtle, a nod to the house’s creators. James Hubbell lent his artistry to various colored rock inlays found throughout the home; a vibrant touch from one of San Diego’s most revered artists.
“Color was very important, and really nature was the inspiration, and so many beautiful colors come from nature. So that was his biggest inspiration,” said the younger Hubbell.
Sitting on its perch above Jamul - the house is not too far from urban San Diego. But it’s also certain to retain its rural flavor.
That’s because it’s adjacent to the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge and the Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve… a place rooted in the ancient history of what we now call San Diego county… with a boulder bringing benefits seen and unseen to whoever’s lucky enough to live in it next.
