“Our lifestyle is a little noisy, because we have four kids and we’ve always had at least two dogs, and we’re all musicians,” said Mr. Divita, a partner at Discovery Land Company, a developer. “Between trumpets, electric guitars and basses, we were a little hard on our neighbors. And for a long time, we had the dream that we could have horses and a farm of our own.”

Image Ed and Julie Divita bought a steeply sloped two-and-a-half-acre lot in Portola Valley, Calif., and commissioned Field Architecture to design a house, music studio, hay barn and stable there. Credit... Matthew Millman for The New York Times

For years, they watched the market and kept Ms. Divita’s horses at a stable not far from their house, occasionally making lowball offers on lots that didn’t pan out. Then one day in 2012, while Ms. Divita was competing in France, Mr. Divita was riding his motorcycle in Portola Valley, Calif., and saw a for-sale-by-owner sign at the edge of a driveway. He turned into the property and discovered a steep site with a forest of oak trees at the top, a grassy meadow below and a house with severe structural problems.

“It was sliding down the hill,” Mr. Divita said.

He struck up a conversation with the owner, who had been trying to sell the two-and-a-half-acre property for more than a year, and negotiated a deal to buy it on the spot for $2.125 million.

When Ms. Divita returned from France, “Ed picked me up at the airport and we came straight here,” she said. “The existing house was horrific, but the property was glorious.”

They searched online for an architecture firm to design a new house and discovered Field Architecture, based in Palo Alto. The Divitas admired Field’s modern homes constructed with rugged materials, including a hillside house in Portola Valley. But it was when Stan Field, who runs the firm with his son, Jess , visited the property that they realized they had found their match.