Building a custom home is a journey, a complex handshake between vision and reality. It’s a process often fraught with challenges, but also brimming with opportunities to create something truly unique and personal. Our recent project was no exception, pushing the boundaries of design and requiring innovative solutions.
Quality and craftsmanship are abound with this home’s features including the 20 foot aqua fire vapor fireplace, the backlit granite slab wall in the master bath dimly lighting the freestanding soaker tub, the fully functioning butler’s pantry and custom locker systems, the hidden bookshelf door leading to the homes shelter room, and so many other design details, too numerous to list here.
The floor plan was designed with a clear understanding of the family’s lifestyle and needs. The main living areas – the kitchen, dining room, and living room – were conceived as an open-concept space, fostering a sense of togetherness and facilitating social interaction. The bedrooms were strategically positioned to provide privacy and tranquility, while the home office was located in a quiet corner, conducive to focused work.

The large arched rooflines on the front and back of this home, while breathtaking in concept, presented considerable engineering challenges. We had to collaborate closely with our engineers to develop one of a kind processes that could support the dramatic curves while meeting stringent building codes. This involved meticulous calculations and the use of our skilled craftsman to ensure both aesthetic appeal and long-term stability. The subtle details of the transition from the arched metal panels to the straight pitched roofline were baby steps compared to the wood and trimwork required on the underside.

The staircase, envisioned as a centerpiece of the foyer, demanded a level of precision and artistry that tested the limits of our craftsmanship. The wood floor product was used to make custom treads, inspired by classic designs mixed with custom lighting, and required countless hours of painstaking work. Each led light strip, each glass panel & stair post, were carefully shaped and fitted, often more than once, to create a seamless flow and a visual masterpiece.

A specific outdoor challenge had us scrambling for solutions. While excavating for the olympic sized swimming pool I was taking pictures to document our progress. The foreman, standing in the bottom of this pit which was to be the deep end at a depth of 9 ft, told the excavator to scrape one last time to reach our final depth, and then we witnessed something very innocently strange, a slow and steady stream of crystal clear water bubbling up from the ground. Unfortunately we had found a natural spring.

With regards to the arched roof over the back deck, it's not often you need to require the electricians to have input during the framing design portion of the project, but without that foresight and their timely input, our can lights would not have such beautiful symmetry with the curved coffer ceiling details on the first try!
The curved metal panels, on the otherhand, presented a task of many tries. After having to be remade due to damage upon delivery, the second attempt posed a separate challenge. How to hoist up a bundle of 42 arched metal panels 50 ft in the air without bending or crimping any of the edges. These standing seams would need to remain perfectly straight if we were to have the clean lines look we intended.
We spent quite a bit more in crane fees that day while he was sitting in the air conditioned cab watching all of us create a spiderweb of straps and cusions. Of course the wind was a factor that day as well, but with 4 lead lines on the ground and a steady handed operator, we delieved the panels to the roof un damaged. There are not many better feelings than when something comes together as planned, except of course for the feeling of when it all comes together despite of the circumstances.
With regards to the staircase challenges, I can say we underestimated the level of attention they might require. In those scenarios, we pride ourselves on not cutting corners to just get a task checked of the to-do list. We refocus our vision and try to remember each step must have the previous step completed, literally. When custom woodworking it requires patience and perfection. When it's done right, it feels right and will hopefully make someone hestitant to rennovate it in the future. We want our work to live on and in that specific case, we were definately ready to move on to the next project!
So about that natural spring…
I joked at the time with the homeowners about the classic good news/bad news situation we found ourselves in. The good news is we can fill your pool very cheaply and slowly with amazingly clean water from a local source! The bad news is that it is your natural spring, and it is directly underneath your pool pit which we are scheduled to pour concrete in the following day. In speaking with the pool crew and relying on their experience, we devised a plan to over dig just outside of the pool foot print, install clean gravel from the spring over to a vertical culvert with holes drilled into it to allow the water a place to flow by gravity away from underneath the pool. From there, we could install a permanent mechanic pump with a float inside of the 16ft long culvert (down to bedrock) and pump it out into the gutter drain system we were currently working on as well. Happy to report it works perfectly. Had we not found that spring when we did, it would have likely pushed the entrie pool shell up out of the ground if they ever drained the pool to clean it in the future. What a lucky problem!