A mosaic-encrusted curved shell home was built after a devastating California wildfire burned the owners' original property down. Take a look.

210 homes burned down in the wildfire, according to a County of Santa Barbara press release. "It looked like an atomic bomb went off. There was nothing," Shelton recalled. 

Shelton, a Santa Barbara-based architect and designer, was approached by the owners of the Shell House to design and build a new home on the plot of their burned-down home, he said.

There were no heirlooms or photos left – they lost everything, he added. 

The clients, who are a family of five, wanted to make the home pottery oriented, particularly as one of them is a ceramist, Shelton said. She also uses tiles in her artwork and wanted to include that too.

Shelton started designing with a pencil in his hand. He gets his idea on paper, but cleans it up for reality's sake, he told Insider.

The property, which is built on a mountain overlooking the ocean, is a freeform shape rather than a perfect circle, he said. 

Once he had a plan, he got a garden hose and string and laid it out for the shape of the building, he said. 

"As long as we can get the openings for the doors to work, and the windows, after that, who cares, who's measuring?" he said.

Over the two years, Shelton and his team built the 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom home that comes with a large studio and a roof deck.

"You've got to think outside that straight box and then maybe throw in some straight lines where you had to put a cabinet or something like that," Shelton told Insider. 

Trying to be fluid with the shape yet still fit in square windows and doors was challenging, Shelton said. 

To make it work, the exterior walls are rounded but some interior walls are straight to accommodate furniture. 

The kitchen was fitted with custom-made cabinets and decorated with tiles, which the owner personally made, Shelton added.

The living room is detail-oriented, with a dandelion-like light and curved windows flooding the room with sunlight. 

"If you don't really embrace detailing, you shouldn't get into one of these projects," Shelton added.

"I basically gave them the shell and let her tile it. Not me telling her what tile to put on there," he added. 

The whole home was finished in roughly a year, Shelton said. To keep in with the ceramic theme, the color scheme of the home is a terracotta shade, as the earth surrounding the home is the same color.

They collected tiles from everywhere, from companies who had extra tiles to broken bits of tiles to make the flower-adorned open shower, he added.

This was a project that he had been wanting for a while, Shelton said.

He used to love these types of buildings as a kid and studied them in architecture school. "I drew them all the time in my free time, kind of like, 'Oh, some day,'" he added. 

If he could ever build such a home again, he'd jump on it in a second, he told Insider.