Today’s home is a beautiful classic 1890s townhouse in Philadelphia’s Art Museum area. The 12,456-square-foot Victorian single-family home has been restored in a way that celebrates its vintage lines. The home combines the best of older craftsmanship and modern technology. It has a gaslight entrance and a state-of-the-art security system with panic room. This six-story home has a variety of unique features including recreational opportunities provided by an indoor gun range and a billiards room. A rooftop deck offers views over the city. The home has six bedrooms, seven fireplaces and a Victorian rotunda with original stained glass. There is elevator service to all six floors. An outdoor garden includes a brick oven and there is also a separate maid’s quarters with its own entrance and kitchen. This home is listed at $5.55 million.

Credit: luxist.com

Southeast of Seattle, on Mercer Island, Chadbourne + Doss architects recently completed a reconstruction of an early Fred Bassetti-designed home, dubbed the Wood Block Residence. Bassetti, an iconic Seattle architect, originally designed the home in 1962, but over the ensuing decades, it had fallen into disrepair.

Credit: swipelife.com

Lisa Chadbourne and Darren Doss worked to comprehensively update the home, while simultaneously referring to 92 year old Bassetti for advice regarding historical accuracy. The result is a rectangular, monolithic structure embedded into a hillside on the island’s west side. The street façade employs imposing site-formed concrete, seamed metal panels, and aluminum screens, but once inside, the plan opens to the heavily wooded site. Cedar-lined ceilings and walls reflect the natural surroundings, which are readily visible through floor to ceiling windows and sliding doors that open onto exterior patios. A black and white color scheme and minimalist furnishings complete the interior décor.

This Telluride, Colorado home was designed by architecture firm Fernau + Hartman with an emphasis on sustainable construction and transition from interior to exterior. Sustainable elements include straw bale exterior walls, concrete floors for thermal mass, and carefully planned natural ventilation. Situated at the top of a hill, the home enjoys views of the surrounding forest, lagoon, and distant coastal range. Accordingly, exterior spaces became a primary design concern. On their website, the firm claims, “our goal was to design a building inextricable from its site, in which indoor and outdoor distinctions are so fluid as to become moot.” To achieve this fluidity, the architects employed a number of tactics including industrial garage doors separating living spaces from the outdoors, and usable exterior spaces around the entire perimeter of the home. Most notable, however, is the use of tracks and wheels that allows select beds to slide out onto exterior terraces. Perched in the highest reaches of the home, the beds allow residents to enjoy unprecedented views from the most comfortable spot in the house.