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Designing a house is like doing a movie: Once you're done, you want to say, 'I hope you all enjoy it.'

Building a house from scratch in the middle of a field is a bit like building a prototype car. As with all prototypes, if you're building a car you usually have the luxury of producing several prototypes before you arrive at the production line version - so the opportunity for changing things is quite rich.

What I learned from architectural drafting is that everything has to have a plan to work. You just can't wing it. I can't get all the materials I need for a house and just start building. Whether it's a career, family, life - you have to plan it out.

I try to create homes, not houses.

Building your own house is a primal urge, one of those universal genetic drives like the need to provide for your family.

A house isn't really understandable until it settles into the site: until it's built, furnished and lived in for four or five years. The reality is not on paper but in how a building sits on the land - how it relates to trees, to slopes, to water, to gardens.

I got into this little habit of architecture and building. I designed a house in Colorado and one in Hawaii. The idea is supposed to be build and sell - but then I can never bring myself to sell them.

Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.

I'm just fascinated by houses. In another life, I'd have probably trained as an architect. If I had enough money, I'd collect them like other people collect teapots. I don't know why I love them so much. I'm just very interested in the idea of a house as a metaphor for the way one lives.