"To accommodate the outdoor orientation of the Butlers' lifestyle, Wurster planned a progression from indoors, or enclosed space, to outdoors.
"From the domesticated vegetation of the courtyard, one moved through the Living Porch onto the Living Terrace overflowing into the natural landscape, where one could contemplate the distant views toward the southeast...
"Departing from the secluded microcosm of the Moorish paradise garden or the Hispanic patio, the Butler House and Garden achieved an almost uninterrupted confluence of building, interior open space, and natural surroundings... The Butler House functioned as an envelope that merely suggested, rather than imposed, the limits between interior and exterior. The living porch served as a membrane between bedroom and living room and court and natural landscape. The courtyard functioned as a lens that refracted and reflected nature back onto itself and onto architecture."

— Dorothée Imbert in An Everyday Modernism: the Houses of William Wurster, edited by Marc Treib, University of California Press, 1995. p116-118.