There is a moment, Zander Diamont says, when a building stops being a project and becomes something else entirely. For the Scottsdale-based firm Minima Homes, that moment arrived on a sun-baked afternoon, when the first light hit the facade of Rosa Blanca and cast shadows so precise and so alive that Diamont and his partner, Jared Amzallag, simply stopped and stared.
“The shadows and texture created this effect that was genuinely arresting. It stopped you in your tracks,” recalls Diamont, who co-founded Minima alongside Amzallag. “Up until that point, we knew the design was strong on paper and in the 3D models, but seeing it physically and reacting to actual desert light, that was the moment it went from a project we believed in to something we knew was going to turn heads.”
Rosa Blanca (“white rose” in Spanish) is Minima’s debut full-size home, and from the beginning, it was conceived as a manifesto. Minima, launched in 2025, is the bold sister of Diamont and Amzallag’s Minimal Living Concepts, Arizona’s largest ADU builder. The brief, as Diamont tells it, was deceptively simple: build something that feels cosmopolitan and globally informed, yet couldn’t exist anywhere other than the Sonoran Desert. “We wanted to build something that feels like it belongs in Mexico City or Barcelona but is completely rooted in the Arizona landscape,” he explains. “A home that’s sculptural from the street but warm and grounded once you’re inside.”
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What gives Rosa Blanca its unmistakable street presence is a facade of handcrafted textured masonry blocks, each one unique, commissioned from artisan partners in Mexico City and installed (painstakingly) on a residential project in the Valley for the first time at this price point. It was, Diamont acknowledges, a significant risk. The logistics alone—tolerances, international shipping, installation sequencing—required the kind of choreography that can unravel a build. But Minima operates under a fully integrated model, with architecture, construction and design all under one roof, which means that when problems arise, they are solved at the table rather than passed between firms.
The result is a wall that is both functional and beautiful. The blocks create shadows and depth that modulate direct sunlight throughout the day—a practical response to the punishing Arizona climate, dressed in the language of sculpture. “The desert doesn’t let you fake it,” Diamont comments. “If you fight the environment, the house will always feel forced.”
Inside, Minima’s signature restraint takes over. The 4,100-square-foot home is organized around a deliberately tight material palette. Ultra-wide white oak floors run continuously through the living spaces; creamy travertine bridges the interior and exterior; and warm neutrals absorb and soften the desert light. Nothing is arbitrary. “Every material in Rosa Blanca earned its place,” Diamont notes. “If something didn’t earn its place, it didn’t make the cut.”
This is the Minima philosophy distilled: sophistication as discipline. Many luxury homes often signal wealth through volume, such as oversized columns and aggressive rooflines. Rosa Blanca takes the opposite position. Spaces flow into one another without unnecessary partition or transition. The architecture recedes, and what fills the void is atmosphere: light, texture, the pleasure of tactile materials.
The name carries this ethos. Inspired in part by the home’s address and in part by the delicacy of its creamy palette, Rosa Blanca was also a nod to the international DNA woven into the project. “It felt right; elegant without being precious,” Diamont says. “And it signals that this isn’t your typical Scottsdale spec home.”
The firm’s architectural references are global. Mexican architect Luis Barragán believed that light and material could evoke a genuine emotional experience. At the same time, the Japanese concept of Ma speaks to the expressive power of what is intentionally left out. These aren’t decorative influences. They’re structural ones, shaping how rooms are sequenced, how the landscape is invited in, how a home of considerable size can be made to feel both expansive and intimate.
“Minimalism at Minima means nothing is arbitrary,” Diamont points out. “When you strip away the noise, what’s left is a home that feels timeless, as tasteful in 20 years as it does today.”
That timelessness is, ultimately, what Rosa Blanca is reaching for. Not the viral moment, not the magazine cover, though the home photographs as if the desert grew it slowly over decades rather than a construction crew having built it in months. What Diamont wants, more than anything, is for someone to walk through the door and exhale.
“Rosa Blanca is our declaration that homes can be art, crafted with intention and built to inspire,” Diamont says. “If someone walks away thinking, ‘I didn’t know a house could feel like that—we’ve done our job.”
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