The East Lake Residence is a private home located on a heavily wooded, steeply sloped site in northeast Oklahoma City near Lake Arcadia. The property drops approximately 40 feet from street level to a creek at the rear of the lot, creating both a dramatic natural setting and a significant design challenge.

The client’s primary desire was to experience daily life within the tree canopy—feeling elevated among the woods rather than positioned above or below them. A second key requirement was visual and physical connection between the main living level and the swimming pool, despite the extreme grade change across the site.

The design resolves these conditions by lifting the primary living spaces onto a constructed plinth embedded into the slope. A substantial downslope stem wall—reaching heights of up to ten feet—anchors the house to the terrain while allowing the living level to project outward into the canopy. The pool is elevated to this same datum, creating a continuous visual relationship between interior living spaces and the outdoor terrace.

Achieving this required extensive structural coordination, including deep foundations and significant retaining systems beneath the pool structure. Rather than concealing these elements, the architecture expresses the logic of the site intervention: a grounded base integrated into the hillside supporting lighter volumes that extend horizontally into the landscape.

The result is a residence that feels suspended among the trees while remaining firmly rooted in the land—balancing structural necessity with a sense of calm, elevation, and immersion in nature.