Project Description
This spiral staircase leads to an old-world wine room and walk-in humidor that makes the visitor feel as if they’ve traveled the globe, says Robert Clarke. “This stair initiates that whole conversation, because … the first impression that you have is that stair.”
While there is a pre-existing stair that leads to another section of the basement, Clarke and his team decided to build an all-new spiral staircase to let users enter the new space immediately, but they didn’t decide to create the stair in stone until about halfway through the process. They worked with 3D renderings, mock-ups, several different groups of people, and lots of trial and error to prove that the stone steps could be manufactured without a central support structure.
The stair’s stacked blocks are custom-made from Indiana buff limestone. The team chose Indiana country stone for the walls, which was delivered to the site for the stone mason to cut each stone by hand to match the curve of the wall, Clarke says. A local artisan created the iron handrails and spindles, the latter hand-pounded on site.–by Marisa Mendez