Ramos Residence by Venn Studio: A Light-Filled Reimagining of Coastal California Living

Located in the heart of Manhattan Beach, California, the Ramos Residence by Venn Studio redefines coastal living with warmth, practicality, and modern sophistication. Designed in 2022 for homeowners John and Carmen Ramos, the project replaces a 1950s ranch-style house with a bright, spacious retreat crafted for family connection, longevity, and the joyful rhythm of seaside life.

Just a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean, the new home captures Southern California’s light and lifestyle while addressing the spatial limitations of the original structure. Through thoughtful reorganization, material sensibility, and an intuitive relationship between interior and exterior, the architects created a sanctuary that balances elegance with informality—the essence of modern coastal living.

Context: Replacing a Midcentury Legacy

For more than two decades, the Ramos family lived in a quaint yet outdated midcentury home filled with memories but constrained by its architecture. The original building—compartmentalized, dim, and closed off from the outdoors—reflected an era before open-plan design became integral to domestic life.

As family gatherings grew over time, the house’s layout could no longer accommodate their needs. The challenge, then, was not only to increase space but to open the home to the landscape, light, and family life. Venn Studio’s solution: a complete reinvention that preserves the spirit of comfort while replacing density with fluid openness.

Design Strategy: Expanding Horizontally and Vertically

Set on a compact site, the new home maximizes every square foot intelligently. A new second floor addition and a detached Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) expanded total livable area, ensuring flexibility for future use.

The ground floor features an open floor plan that eliminates walls and barriers, connecting kitchen, dining, living, and outdoor areas into one continuous social core. Large sliding glass doors open directly to a new backyard patio and pool, dissolving the boundary between inside and outside—the defining gesture of Southern California modernism.

Central to the new layout is a ground-floor master suite, allowing the owners to “age in place” while maintaining privacy from upper-floor social spaces. Morning light pours into this level, illuminating it softly, while afternoon sun filters through the stair tower to create a constantly shifting atmosphere throughout the day.

Second Floor: Light, Flexibility, and Flow

The second story adds functional adaptability. Two guest bedrooms anchor the scheme, linked by a shared central lounge that doubles as a recreational hub. Terraces on both sides—one facing the front yard, the other overlooking the rear—extend the interiors outward, offering panoramic views and natural ventilation.

Complementing these social terraces, the second level also houses a gym, sauna, and built-in workspace, forming a self-contained retreat where health, productivity, and relaxation coexist. Each space benefits from abundant daylight and cross breezes, qualities that strengthen the home’s emotional connection to its coastal environment.

Spatial Warmth and Material Balance

The architectural language of Ramos Residence expresses refinement through tactile honesty. Venn Studio selected a palette of stucco, natural stone, and vertical wood siding, balancing the masonry’s solidity with the organic softness of timber.

Externally, vertical siding accentuates the home’s height while complementing the irregular stone cladding, its texture changing with light and shadow over the day. Smooth trowel stucco provides a quiet contrast, refining the building’s coastal modern aesthetic.

Inside, exposed ceiling beams, a stone-clad fireplace, and custom walnut cabinetry bring natural warmth to the open spaces. A stone waterfall countertop flows over the kitchen island, its sculpted mass contrasted by the light-filled openness around it. In the bathrooms, stone tiles and trim details create a calm, grounded tactility, inviting both function and craftsmanship into daily rituals.

Light as Design Medium

Natural light orchestrates the spatial experience throughout the day. Morning light fills the master suite and living areas, noon brings vibrance to the communal zones, and as the sun sets, warm amber tones wash the kitchen and dining spaces in soft brilliance. This daily choreography of light transforms architectural surfaces into living textures, enhancing the home’s sensory depth.

This integration of daylight, scale, and proportion lends the house a mood both uplifting and measured—a visual rhythm that mirrors the flow of coastal air and ocean light.

A Family Home Built for the Next Chapter

For the Ramos family, the project represents more than a replacement home—it is a continuation of life reimagined through architecture. The design effortlessly bridges their personal history with a renewed future. Through openness, material integrity, and natural light, Venn Studio has created a coastal residence that feels grounded yet boundless, intimate yet expansive.

Ramos Residence captures the California ideal: rejuvenation through space, sunlight, and the enduring connection between family, architecture, and the sea.

All the Photographs are works of Justin Chung