One of the most successful elements of the design is its engagement with the natural world around it. The house is not merely perched on the edge of the hillside; rather it rests gently into the land and among the trees, providing spectacular panoramic views from its many windows and tower porches. As Twain noted in an 1874 letter to his wife Livy as their home was under construction:

You may look at the house or the grounds from any point of view you choose and they are simply exquisite. It is a quiet, murmurous, enchanting poem done in the solid elements of nature. The house and the barn do not seem to have been set up on the grassy slopes and levels by laws and plans and specifications – it seems as if they grew up and out of the ground and were part of the parcel of nature's handiwork. The harmony of size, shape, color – everything–is harmonious. It is a house – and the word never had so much meaning before.

The exterior of the house is enhanced by jigsaw-cut wooden decorations, which is defined by abstracted natural elements: butterflies, flowers, and squirrels in branches. The landscape is brought into the house as well through the swelling conservatory off the library looking south to the river below. These three levels of engagement with nature – the setting and vistas, the decorative screen of abstracted elements, and the insertion of the natural world itself through the large conservatory – surely underscore the importance of this relationship.