The Objective
Simple enough – revive and completely customize an existing home from pedestal to rooftop, including a curved staircase, hand finished details, exposed beams, a dumbwaiter, a covered porch, and multiple fireplaces to create a mountaintop dream home.
To execute the dream in their desired location in Mountain Air, the clients had to purchase an existing home in the sub-community where they wanted to live. Since there weren’t any vacant lots available for them to build a custom home, the owners had to renovate an existing home from the foundation up.
Project Details
The project team included Armin Wessel of Wessel Architecture, Kristin Levy of ID.ology, and the Sineath Construction team.
The Challenges
We faced two-fold challenges.
1. The home’s foundation was a sixteen-foot by sixteen-foot pedestal, which means the rest of the home is cantilevered off the pedestal. Pedestal foundations are great for sloped lots and are common on steep slopes because a pedestal is a small footprint. Challenges come into play because of the additional engineering that has to happen to ensure the rest of the home is stable.
2. The sub-community in Mountain Air was designed to have exceedingly small lot lines with an association that owns and maintains all the common property. Small lot lines meant we could only build within a limited area of the lot that went a only few feet beyond the existing decks on the home. As a result, additional space was not an option, and the final design reflects and accommodates some of those challenges.
The Transformation
Renovating an existing home solved the challenge for the clients’ desire to be in a specific community within Mountain Air. In many ways the project felt like new construction to the owners because the home was redesigned from the foundation up.
This mountain home uses many native materials such as poplar bark siding, stone, pine beams, and more to give it an authentic, somewhat rustic mountain feel. Many of the interior touches reflect the owner’s Charleston roots like the curved stairway with hand hewn railing in the foyer that leads to the main living level on the second story.
The modern, completely reconfigured kitchen features a massive island that provides breakfast seating, ample storage and an abundance of counter space.
The kitchen opens to the dining area and a large gathering room with a fireplace and stone surround. A dumbwaiter built into the space below the stairs to the third-floor home office makes it easy to get groceries from the car to the kitchen on the second level.
The primary bedroom suite is on the second level and includes a large en-suite bathroom and a sunroom, perfect for morning coffee. It also includes floor to ceiling windows and French doors that open onto a deck with 180-degree mountain views.
Our favorite room in the home is the office on the third floor. It feels like a treehouse perched in the canopy of deciduous trees and pines and boasts long range views in multiple directions. The office is themed to resemble an airplane hangar with its custom patina-finished galvanized aluminum panels on the ceiling and cypress paneling on the walls.
The ground level features a large guest suite and a den. Laundry facilities and a mudroom make up the original 16 ft. x16 ft. foundation pedestal.
See more photos of this project in our portfolio.
“After settling on a property, there was no question as to which contractor would complete our extensive renovation; Brian had earned the job many times over. He was readily available throughout the process to answer questions and offer assistance, listening to BOTH of us and addressing any concerns we had with his trademark low-key, unflappable demeanor. The final result is breathtaking, and we continue to receive compliments from anyone who visits our home. The pride Brian takes in his work is reflected in the craftsmanship and detail of our home.” – James and Heather Platzer
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