The 25, 0000 -Sq. Ft. contemporary house was imagined for a philanthropic family that regularly hosts events in support of various charities. More familiar with a traditional design style, they sought out a designer to redefine their sensibilities toward a bolder contemporary expression.

One challenge was ensuring the home maintained a level of warmth and comfort with or without guests. When moving between rooms, a visual fluidity is revealed through a harmonized palette of natural woods, quarried stone, milky hues, and soft textures. Understated tones are countered with dramatic sight lines that lead toward works of art or custom pieces. Volumetrically the interior architecture presented a grand expression almost gallery like that spoke to a rarified point of view. This led to heavily researching artisans, artists and created opportunities to design several areas of the residence that could be a focal point, and of course “the pièce de résistance” was the carved French limestone spiral staircase with its 30 feet lighting piece.

The designer’s vision was an unravelling ribbon of stone that would be viewed as a sculptural piece first and meant to be discovered as you make your way around the home. Unlike any other grand staircase that is typically positioned at the entrance or center of the home, this was positioned in an off-centered location. Still acting as the core of the residence, bridging together various rooms, and connected to a large gallery-like hallway showcasing the owner’s art collection, the hand-carved stone staircase becomes an unexpected point of memory for anyone experiencing it.

The vista from the dining room clearly framed the spiral staircase and the designers saw here, another opportunity to use this as the perfect backdrop to create a complementary piece, a light form that defines, as well as formalizes the dining room adjacent to it. Unlike a lot of homes of this elk the convention was to present a pendant light in the dining room but here, the designers used the sinuous curves of the stone staircase to countered it by a cut-glass pendant light that hangs from the ceiling.The result is a piece that is like no other and that looks as beautiful off as well as on, and that is a seamless addition to the staircase and a beacon of light from the dining room.

The vision and concept for the luminaire was executed in collaboration with a lighting designer. The light’s bijou presence was adopted from a gemstone cutting technique called cabochon, customarily used by jewelers. The craftsmanship behind each piece of convex glass enables the fixture to cast dazzling patterns of refracted light onto the staircase and the walls. The luminaire morphs from a sculptural piece to a column of light that is almost hypnotic when you step up or downward, the scale and uniqueness of the stairwell with its lighting fixture at the center creates a WOW factor for anyone to remember.