This project is an exploration of putting a small house on part of a large piece of land that had been subdivided into multiple large lots.  My client owns the entire piece of land and has been strategizing the optimum way to create a few high-quality houses in the small development.  This scheme looks at building first on a parcel containing a few very old cabins and a barn.   One of the key questions is whether to build a single-story house…or fit the same program into a two-story house.  The parcel is large enough and the landscape is so vast that an elongated single-story home facing the Teton mountain range would make sense.  Except…the construction costs are incredibly high, and the structural requirements imposed by the snow loads and seismic zone are so intense, that a more compact two-story house would be the most efficient use of the construction budget…and…the ongoing energy cost budget.