The Corporate Retreat: Immersive Gathering in the High Sierra
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Tucked in the eastern Sierras above a remote canyon, FireSky designed a multi-structure landscape intended not just to host but to ground. Crafted for intimate executive gatherings, this project weaves natural elements, sculptural fire features, and gathering architecture into a single unfolding story. Part wilderness sanctuary, part modern camp, it is a landscape designed to support clarity, connection, and collaborative thought.
Award-Winning Landscape:
Corporate Design
The Project: Grounded Luxury in the Mountains
Set against dramatic alpine ridgelines, the Corporate Retreat demanded a design that could disappear into its surroundings and still elevate the experience of every guest. The client envisioned a property that evoked privacy, freedom, and a subtle sense of ceremony. FireSky answered with a multi-level living landscape that blurs boundaries between indoors and out.
Terraced across a steep slope, the site integrates a main lodge, separate casitas, and an expansive pavilion—each carefully positioned to protect views, create quiet thresholds, and open organically into curated gathering zones.
Design Approach: Geometry, Elevation & Elemental Calm
This retreat was never meant to shout. It was meant to hold space for strategic conversations, creative exploration, and quiet recharge. We carved form from elevation, using material massing and grade transitions to sculpt an environment that reveals itself slowly.
The lawn terrace, a verdant clearing surrounded by stone and trees, serves as the spatial anchor: an open field for meetings, meditation, or moments of play. Framing that openness are layered staircases, wrapped seating zones, and a linear fire-lit pavilion that extends deep into the tree line.
The FireSky principles come through clearly:
Design is directional.
Every step leads somewhere—toward fire, water, or view.Quiet is crafted.
Stillness isn't absence—it’s an active decision.Outdoor spaces should be emotionally legible.
People should feel how to use them.
Construction Highlights: Where Structure Meets Soul
Though the layout is expansive, every detail was considered with intention. Key features include:
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The signature gathering space is a covered structure that balances elegance and protection. With exposed timber beams, integrated lighting, and a monolithic hearth wall, this outdoor room offers warmth and presence. It hosts meals, workshops, and spontaneous evening conversations, all with mountain air in every breath.
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At the heart of the green lies a custom-carved stone fountain. Designed to feel as though it erupted from the earth itself, the feature evokes ritual, renewal, and attention to detail. Boulders and retaining walls throughout the site are dry-stacked or grouted with intentional variation, echoing the local geology.
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Multiple fire pits are embedded along circulation routes, with curved seat walls and Adirondack chairs inviting pause. The subtle grade changes not only manage the slope, they choreograph movement and create stages for conversation.
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Drought-tolerant and visually immersive, the planting design wraps each structure in layered texture, conifers for scale, perennials for softness, and meadow grasses for movement. The plantings change subtly with elevation, reinforcing the terrain’s story.
A Private Project with Public Impact
The Corporate Retreat has become one of FireSky’s most significant case studies. It exemplifies the full scope of our capabilities—from master planning and architectural collaboration to fine grading and final plant selection.
More importantly, it demonstrates FireSky’s evolving ethos:
That landscape is not background, but backbone.
That hospitality begins with the land.
That the spaces between buildings matter just as much as what’s built.
The Outcome: A Place to Think, to Gather & to Breathe
Whether used for board meetings, creative sprints, or weekend respite, the retreat now functions exactly as intended: as a spacious mindscape. Guests report feeling calmed, focused, and held by the environment. Even in silence, the site ststes: You’re welcome here. Stay as long as you need.
The FireSky Experience: Natural Form, Artistic Focus.
This project invites us to remember that design is more than aesthetics—it’s a form of leadership. And when outdoor space is elevated to its highest potential, it does more than impress. It inspires.
