#warren schwartz

[ofhouses]

725. Warren Schwartz /// Warren Schwartz and Sheila Fiekowsky House /// Tanglewood, West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, USA /// 1986

OfHouses presents Record Houses, part XIII. (Photos: © Mick Hales, Christopher Little. Source: “Architectural Record Houses of 1987″, Mid-April 1987; “Architecture”, March 1990.)

[theartytech]

the glass house

boston architect, warren schwartz, designed and built a modern dwelling of steel, glass and concrete in the berkshires.  he primarily built it for his wife, a longtime violinist, for the boston symphony orchestra and for himself.  the three bedroom home stretches more than thirty feet with views across the wooded hills and rooftop terraces.

one can walk through a long narrow hallway that is past three terraced bedrooms, before arriving in the "great room."  the great room cantilevers for forty-five feet, floating fourteen feet off the ground.  the round, steel support beams are painted white across the home's glass facades at various angles.  between the home, thin steel sheets are folded into steps, connecting the home's rooftop terrace to the basement and patio level.

another unique design is the frosted glass walls that are separated by the twelve by eleven foot bedrooms from the hallway with translucent, honeycomb-like plastic doors that slide away to reveal the incredible bathrooms.  the glass facades also offer panoramic sweeping views of the surrounding countryside.

the decor is a high and low mix, being both modern and minimal.  it consists of a glass le corbusier table in the great room that sits near the euro influenced kitchen.  the couple also gravitated toward a color pattern of grey, black, white and silver so the landscape outside would be a focal point.

the cantilevered glass house's intent was to be "overdesigned" for stability reasons and it can surprisingly hold sixty people safely, plus several thousand more on the household's rooftop terrace.  additionally, the couple spent a little over one million dollars to build and furnish the home, that was fully completed in 2009.

[nispell-blog-blog]