The skewer that holds this triple-deck sandwich together is the sophisticated stair that links the main-level living spaces with the master bedroom above and the children’s suite below. A second, more private stair, mandated by egress requirements, provides a shortcut from the master suite to the first-floor library.
While finished to some degree, the home’s basement was clearly not originally intended as a habitable space. “It had about a 6-foot ceiling,” Linsteadt says. “It had one bedroom and all these funky storage rooms.” The effect was dark and faintly creepy, Knorpp recalls. “My kids were scared to go downstairs.” Linsteadt’s prescription: headroom, natural light, and plenty of fresh air.
Raising the entire house was not feasible — the main floor was high enough above grade already — so Floyd’s crew supported the building’s wood-frame structure and demolished the existing foundation. “We had a house mover hold it up on I-beams, and we got in there with a Bobcat to dig it out,” Floyd says. “We lowered the grade in there 3 feet. We had to put in a big retaining wall because we’re 4 feet below grade at the front, but the basement daylights at the back, at the pool deck.”
The resulting space, with its 9-foot ceilings and new window openings, comfortably contains a bedroom suite for the family’s two teenagers, a guest suite, a laundry room, and storage.
—Bruce Snider is senior contributing editor at CUSTOM HOME and RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECT, sister publications of Remodeling.
