Touring the Newest Floating Prefab Home on the East Coast #hometour

The Pritzker Prize winner (whose work included The Louvre Pyramid in Paris) purchased the historic home more than 45 years ago.

The whimsical, modern collection is perfect for the backyard and beyond.

This was a 285 s.f. rear yard addition to an existing house, adding a family/dining room out back, and a roof deck above. It sits a half-floor below the main floor, allowing easy access to the backyard, and its new stairs to the basement replace the demo’d old stairs down from the kitchen, which opened up a lot of usable space there. Highlights of the project include the Panoramic folding-glass door wall, opening out to the new back yard terrace; the steel stairs (fabricated by the owner’s father) with thick fir treads; the vertical grain oak kitchen cabinets, with an island on casters, and eating bar overlooking the new room below; the new roof deck; and the standing-seam metal siding.

Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, selects the most groundbreaking structures of the last decade.