Posts Tagged ‘arizona’

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Erik Weinbrecht

From the September 2017 edition of Art & Home, Iyna Bort Caruso shows us that a library can be a true reflection of your best self.

Walk into a personal library and you enter a realm, not just a room. No other space offers as much insight into a homeowner’s preferences, style and intellectual curiosity. They can feel intimate and consequential.

$2,500,000 USD | Newport, Rhode Island | Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty 

In Newport, Rhode Island, the centerpiece of one sprawling condominium is a massive library with vaulted cedar-shingled ceilings, cherry and mahogany millwork and an imposing fireplace. Although it looks authentic to the home, the library was a meticulous 21^st century reimagining by its current owners out of a space where coachmen once met. The condo, joined together from three units, is in a former carriage house built in 1852 that was once part of an estate owned by John Jacob Astor. Kate Kirby Greenman of Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty in Newport calls the library “remarkable.”

$5,900,000 USD | Salt Lake City, Utah | Summit Sotheby’s International Realty 

The 30 by 30-foot room, accessed by stairs or elevator, also has an adjoining butler’s pantry and wet bar which makes it ideal for entertaining as well as for quiet contemplation, notes Greenman. “People enter the library and are just awestruck,” she says. “It’s very peaceful, very beautiful and it just takes your breath away.”

$165,000,000 USD | Manalapan, Florida | Sotheby’s International Realty – Palm Beach Brokerage

In a digital world, the idea of a space given over to actual hard-covered books might seem anachronistic if it wasn’t still so alluring. Even die-hard texters, tweeters and e-reader enthusiasts easily get swept up in rooms dedicated to stories, history and ideas. But without question libraries have evolved. Today, they’re a backdrop for entertainment and a showcase for art and design.

$16,950,000 USD | Paradise Valley, Arizona | Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty 

“I love the way you can manipulate space with books,” says architect Susan Bower of Mitchell Wall Architect and Design in St. Louis, Missouri. Line a room with books and they can give the impression of wallpaper. Build freestanding bookcases and they become sculptural pieces. “They lend a presence and a depth to any room,” Bower says. “In a library, you have all these ideas captured between bindings. It’s just a wonderful repository of human thought.”

From glass houses to homes with captivating recording studios and music rooms, experience amenities and lifestyles in previous editions of Art & Home

Posted on August 15, 2017 by Erik Weinbrecht

From the Summer 2017 edition of Art & Home, Iyna Bort Caruso takes us through the looking glass and into a world of homes that feature captivating glass structures.

For the last 16 years, Thomas Roszak has lived with his family in a glass home of his own design, and he’s already thinking of his next one. “I don’t see any other way to live.”

Price Upon Request | Auckland, New Zealand | New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty

Roszak, a Chicago, Illinois-based architect, built his see-through home in the suburbs on an acre of land screened by 60 to 80-foot maples, oaks and honeylocusts to block the sun–and block prying eyes. It was his dream house, combining his ideas about how space flows from one room to the next and the changing play of light. At times the home is transparent, other times it is reflective, mirroring the environment and creating a habitat where the outside and inside become one.

Glass walls frame scenery like a mural. The more dramatic the backdrop, the greater the role glass plays as a design element. Mike Shapiro, chairman of HÔM Sotheby’s International Realty in Newport Beach, California, says, “Homeowners here spend millions for the view, so the more glass the happier they are.”

$19,995,000 USD | Bridgehampton, New York | Sotheby’s International Realty – Bridgehampton Brokerage

Glass brings homeowners into nature with an aesthetic that fits in perfectly with the simplicity of modern design. Light, airiness and a sense of abundance are at the very essence of contemporary architecture.

Glass buildings are modern, but they’re not new. Today’s generation pay homage to icons like the Glass House by Philip Johnson built in 1949 in Canaan, Connecticut, and the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, completed in 1951 by Mies van der Rohe. Both are now operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and look as fresh and relevant as the day they were built.

$24,000,000 USD | Carpinteria, California | Sotheby’s International Realty – Montecito – Upper Village Road Brokerage

The difference is that today’s glass structures are no longer plagued by the problems of earlier models such as condensation, leakage and energy waste. They don’t suffer heat loss in winter or heat gain in summer. Glass homes are now high performance structures. Thanks to advancements, glass is also being incorporated into residences in inventive new ways. Shapiro has seen a surge in glass used in interior bridges, flooring surfaces and negative edge pool walls. “The technology is extraordinary,” he says.

$4,495,000 USD | Scottsdale, Arizona | Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty 

Glass homes as architectural curiosities are a thing of the past. “When we first moved in nobody on our street liked the house,” recalls Roszak. “Now 15 years later, everybody loves it. They talk about how they live on the road that has the glass house, so now they kind of made it their own.”  Roszak says it’s about education. “People don’t understand modern houses until they see them on the timeline of architectural history. As technology advances, aesthetics advance.  Art and architecture should always look forward.”

From Castles to Music Studios, Discover More From Previous Editions of Art & Home

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Erik Weinbrecht

The latest volume of Art & Home is here! This month, Iyna Bort Caruso takes us to the forefront of design and innovation.

There are architects who design homes. And then there are visionaries who rethink the very definition of what a home is and how it should be experienced. 

$6,700,000 USD | Park City, Utah | Summit Sotheby’s International Realty

In certain circles, innovative architecture is a boundary-pushing test of one-upmanship. Architects are juxtaposing styles and exaggerating silhouettes to create what seems like newly invented forms. They’re embracing the element of surprise and a hint of playfulness. 

$5,995,000 USD | Austin, Texas | Kuper Sotheby’s International Realty

To be successful, however, innovative design has to do more than break with the past. It has to be functional. It is the architect’s responsibility to create designs that better the lives of the people who inhabit the home, says Dan Brunn, a Los Angeles, California-based architect whose residences have incorporated pivoting walls to display (or conceal) artwork and zig zag-shaped balconies. Bringing shapes and spaces together, capturing volume and light, framing views and choreographing floor plans so that “forms comes alive” are the attributes of great architecture, Brunn says.   

3.500.000 € EUR | Saxony, Germany | Berlin Sotheby’s International Realty

In areas like Scottsdale, Arizona, some luxury home buyers are shifting away from traditional Tuscan and Southwest Territorial styles. They’re opting for statement-making properties with striking contemporary lines that “contrast with our Sonoran Desert, yet balance with its natural setting in terms of aesthetics,” says Deems Dickinson, president and principal broker of Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty in Scottsdale. A custom home located on the 17th fairway of the prestigious Mirabel Golf Club community, for instance, is a remarkable example of modern architecture that stands out in the openness of the desert surroundings. The home features an indoor atrium with a bamboo garden, a floating staircase and windows that extend from the floor to ceiling and beyond, becoming full-length skylights. 

$4,490,000 USD | Scottsdale, Arizona | Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty

Architecture that challenges conventions has the power to turn heads. But architecture that’s fueled by transformational design has the power to turn homes into instant landmarks.

$3,275,000 USD | Orange Beach, Alabama | Kaiser Sotheby’s International Realty

See homes from around the world in previous editions of Art & Home