8 amazing, Asian-inspired mansions

Japanese palace

Woodside, Calif.

Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison's collection of luxurious homes includes a 23-acre estate patterned after a 17th-century Japanese palace. Ellison's megamanse was constructed by Paul Driscoe, a Zen Buddhist teacher who studied architecture as a temple builder in Kyoto, Japan. The $70 million compound includes a nearly 8,000-square-foot main residence, three cottages and a gymnasium among its 10 buildings.

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More than buildings

The compound also has three gates, eight bridges, two gardens, a five-acre man-made lake and a boat to match. Plantings include hundreds of mature cherry, maple and other Japanese trees amid nearly 1,000 pines, oaks and redwoods.

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Pavilion paradise

Summerland, Calif.

Sitting on top of a hill, buffeted by winds from the Pacific, the 5,700-square-foot custom ocean-view home designed by Santa Barbara architect Barry Berkus is a blend of contemporary and Asian design.

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Linked living

The flat roofs curve upward at the edges, a modern take on pagoda style. Seven pavilions, each protecting a courtyard, link the living spaces. The courtyards also "create a series of destinations or events; we are trying to create surprises," Berkus says. "It adds adventure."

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Ocean view

The mansion's glass walls provide transparency. Two reflecting ponds and a swimming pool with an infinity edge appear to blend into the sea.

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Japanese country home

Portland, Ore.

John Chlopek, president of Riverland Homes, a custom builder, was "looking for a soothing environment to live in" that was very different from the residences he was building at the time. "I have always been attracted to the clean, warm, uncluttered look of Japanese style," Chlopek says. He overhauled an old ranch-style home with a Japanese country-home theme, using slate, natural fir and teak woodwork, and antique heart-pine floors. A half-acre of Japanese gardens is visible through large windows. The master suite, designed in the Japanese style with a futon on a low, raised sleeping platform, opens out to the garden and hot tub. The garage doors are painted to resemble shoji panels.

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Feng shui chalet

Telluride, Colo.

The question for architect Michael Fuller was whether his clients' desire for an Asian aesthetic — not a copy of a teahouse or temple — could translate to a Colorado ski-in, ski-out house.

While at first they seemed a world apart, similarities in how heavy lumber was used and how trusses were built became apparent. The resulting 5,000-square-foot home on a two-acre wooded lot cascades down the mountainside following the natural landscape.

Inside, the open floor plan flows through the use of feng shui principles, with "a serenity about it that isn't dependent on scarcity of materials but the way materials are used," Fuller says. The Asian aesthetic is also evident in the home’s proportion and scale, the naturalness of materials, meticulous attention to detail, decorative fabrics, silks, artwork and a Chinese granite hearth quarried from the Yangtze River area.

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Reflecting-pool home

Vashon Island, Wash.

Meditative Japanese gardens with reflecting pools, Chinese millstones and granite planks add to the enchanted aura beyond the stone and teak gates of this 17-acre compound on Vashon Island, a 15-minute ferry ride from Seattle. The nearly $3 million compound includes a main house outfitted with extensive teak woodwork, large overhangs, a metal roof, a Japanese soaking tub and a room-sized shower.

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Touches of Asia

The other two homes on the property are antique, solid teak structures that were imported from Asia and reassembled overlooking Puget Sound. The Chinese house has raised thresholds, exposed wood roof rafters, shutters and paned round windows. The Javanese joglo has filigreed carvings and a witches' cap roof. It is used as a yoga and meditation studio and to hold sitar concerts.

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Balinese luxury

Austin, Texas

Southeast Asia meets the Lone Star State in a pavilion-style home inspired by a couple's long-ago honeymoon in Bali. The client asked architect David Webber to incorporate elements of Balinese architecture into a home that also reflected their Texas roots. While the materials used in construction came from within a 30-mile radius, and the metal roof is regional, Webber says the Balinese stone "is not dissimilar to the stone we get in our region."

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Built for the climate

Post and lintel construction methods that make Balinese architecture distinct, and features such as large overhangs and louvered walls, work in both hot and humid climates. Accessed via a covered walkway, a yoga studio shares an adjoining pavilion on the 1.75-acre property with a guest suite over a four-car garage.

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Pagoda beach house

Montauk, N.Y.

Unlike more conventional contemporary or gambrel-style homes, this $4.5 million waterfront mansion in New York's swanky Hamptons, built in 2004, makes a statement with its pagoda-style, cedar-shingle roof that flares on its edges like a flip hairdo. The floor-to-ceiling windows capture 270-degree views of the Atlantic Ocean to one side, Block Island Sound and Fort Pond Bay to another. The expanse can also be savored from the wrap-around, covered mahogany decks. Entry is over a bridge via carved 12-foot double doors that lead to the open main entertaining spaces on the top level. A meditation garden and a raised planting area highlight the lushly landscaped 1.5-acre property.

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