Stairs in Armonk

We have been working on a project in Armonk for the last two or three years......mostly on paper but we're at the point now where construction is under way and you can start seeing what the house is really going to do. It was a builder's house [ McMainsion] so the details were non existent and nowhere was it worse than the front entry and the stairs in particular. Working with architect Lucio deLeo of Studio RAI the new Front Hall is acquiring much needed grace. All traces of new construction will soon be gone.......

A drawing of the new stairs, the pitch was changed necessitating taking a foot off of the library and squaring off the room. I wish I had pictures of the before which was tragic.

There's a hall at the top of the stairs which is being separated from the main volume by columns. The railings will go in between. We are tweaking the placement of the columns...sometimes an inch makes all the difference.

The new stairs have a gracious pitch and a lovely curve.

We had to work out the height of the railings. Code says they need to be 36" tall but that would have made them look much too high. The solution was to make the facia a little taller making the iron work seem shorter. We also made the ovals very light and added steel balls top and bottom to break up the pattern......they look 30" tall but are actually to the specified code height. Greg McKenna the very capable and talented GC of McKenna Custom trying them out.