Feature Stair Structure and Glass Rails

This is Part 2 in a series of project profiles featuring projects completed in collaboration with architect Marcus Gleystein. This light-filled lake home is a beautiful mix of rustic and modern incorporating elements such as natural granite walls, slate floors, shiplap, and modern wood-paneled walls and ceilings. Large windows and understated lighting fixtures put the home’s stunning natural setting front and center.

The stairway leading from the basement to the second floor is a unifying focal point, combining granite, wood, and glass elements. The center mono stringer stair design is accented with natural wood rails and clear glass banisters. The solid granite treads are smooth-finished in contrast to the rustic granite walls.

In addition to the stairway, we also fabricated and installed a custom cabinet in the home’s wine room. 

As part of this collaboration, we were actively involved from the design phase, taking the architect’s renderings to remodel the staircase to ensure it fit the architect’s vision while being correctly incorporated into the builder’s construction plans. To do that, we produced our own shop drawings and worked on detailed fabrication and engineering specifications. 

For this project, the stairway stringers were pre-built and pre-finished before being installed and receiving their final finish on site. There is an inherent risk in doing this as it requires incredible precision. The prefinished stringers weighed a thousand pounds each, calling for careful planning to avoid any potential problems in bringing them into the home and installing them. The granite treads themselves were extremely heavy, and we did identify a potential shaking risk to the initial design which proved to be the case. By adjusting the stringer design from an i-beam configuration to a four-sided box we were able to solve the issue.

By being involved from the beginning, we were able to ensure the finished stairway was not only aesthetically perfect, but that it also functioned flawlessly.  We’re very proud of the final results!

Looking for more? View Part 1 of our series in collaboration with architect Marcus Gleystein: Feature Stair and Rails in Newton, MA