Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
NARRATOR: There are extreme homes all over the world,
and we're taking you inside some of them
for a personal tour.
The word "extreme" means different things
to different people,
but to these homeowners,
it means dreaming, daring, and innovating.
From construction to completion,
we'll take a close-up look at these spectacular homes
to find out just what makes each of them so extreme.
Like this stealth house, hidden underground.
Or this slimline home squeezed into the tiniest of spaces.
We'll show you a house
built inside an East German water tower
and one that's hanging off the edge of a Spanish cliff.
Exciting shapes, exceptional sizes, and exotic locations.
These are some of the coolest homes around.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
First up, The Hamptons,
and a home designed to satisfy all your needs,
both material and spiritual.
Architect Setsuo Ito first discovered the location,
a 15-acre nature reserve, when he was walking his dog.
It had all the right elements, privacy, and a great location --
Just two hours away from New York City.
First, Ito created a place
to get in touch with his spiritual side
and to meditate,
and what better place than a pyramid?
He placed the imposing 32-foot steel structure
on the highest point of the site.
Next came the living quarters.
Now, who said being spiritual
meant denying yourself great luxury?
This place comes complete
with a lavish 12,000-square-foot home.
You enter through a 10-foot front door
faced with copper and framed by glass bricks,
a recurring element in the house.
Inside is the grand lobby,
lit by a modern fixture Ito designed himself.
The heart of the home is the atrium.
It's all brilliant white
and designed for hanging out and dining.
The six-foot-wide central fireplace weighs three tons
and took two months to install.
The surrounding hearth is made of rare Brazilian green granite.
And the free-standing chimney
stretches 30 feet up to the ceiling.
A glass-brick staircase
takes you up from the kitchen area to the master suite.
There's a light and airy bedroom,
a living room under a huge skylight,
and a bathroom with a hydrothermal tub.
But this isn't just a pad for silent seclusion.
There's plenty of space to party
and lots of rooms for guests to crash.
Who wouldn't like to sleep in this painted pagoda bed
with a silk canopy?
For the more adventurous, there's even a concert hall,
with its own grand piano.
And don't worry about disturbing the peace.
The fabric-draped ceiling and the concrete walls
absorb the noise.
The house may be opulent,
but it never loses sight of its new-age principles.
The entire building, including this gallery,
is designed to sync up with the movement of the sun.
So, on the summer solstice each June,
the home faces directly at the sunrise
and is bathed in a warm glow.
This mystical alignment has a practical purpose.
All rooms get an equal amount of sunshine year-round.
The Ito house is a residence at peace with itself
and strikes the perfect balance
between the material and the mystical world.
Have you ever walked down a city street,
seen a gap between buildings, and thought,
"I could build a home in there"?
Well, that's exactly what happened
to architect Jakub Szczensy
as he strolled through Warsaw, the capital of Poland.
I suddenly turned my head left instead of just going straight
and saw this strange gap between two buildings.
So, I thought, like, it would be great to connect them,
to have a glue, something that, you know, puts life in between.
NARRATOR: The biggest challenge with this particular gap was its size.
No, your eyes are not deceiving you.
It really is that narrow --
Just five feet across.
Undeterred, Jakub decided
it was the perfect place to build a home.
Not for a family, but for local artists and writers.
To make sure it would work,
he first sought out the opinion of writer friend Etgar Keret.
I sort of inversed the normal process
in which I have my clients coming to me
with a place and a brief.
Instead, I addressed Etgar,
who enthusiastically said, like, "Yes, it's a great thing!"
NARRATOR: Once he had the go-ahead, he got to work.
The narrow location dictated the construction method.
There was no need for foundations or supporting walls,
so Jakub used a steel-frame skeleton
that was constructed offsite.
The design was so simple,
it took two people just five hours to assemble.
Then they dismantled the three-ton frame again
and trucked it to the construction site,
where it was installed using a special narrow crane.
To max out the internal space of the home,
the walls were made from nanofoam panels
around two inches thick.
Even with that inventive solution,
there's still only 46 square feet of floor space
in the entire house.
That's less than an average bathroom.
Jakub's use of space is ingenious.
Somehow, his plan squeezed in a kitchenette, bathroom,
dining area, and bedroom.
Everything about this house is slimmed down.
The entrance at the back of the house
is just three feet wide
and accessed by a 10-foot ladder.
This is where we climb up these industrial-looking stairs
and, through a trap door, we go inside.
NARRATOR: If you have any problem with confined spaces,
then this isn't the house for you.
The kitchen and bathroom are on the first level.
SZCZENSY: We're now on the level of what is the living room,
which, paradoxically, is the most narrow space in the house.
This is where we can have a morning egg.
The kitchenette that, for New Yorkers,
is actually a normal one,
but in Warsaw terms, it doesn't exist.
It's just 90 centimeters.
But it can still prepare a breakfast on it.
And, then, the bathroom that was actually inspired
by the bathrooms one might know from airplanes or yachts...
with a sliding door.
NARRATOR: This home looks like it's dying to expand,
but in this location, the only way is up.
Here's the upper floor, with a sleeping compartment,
and the base of it all -- the place to work.
It's a studio.
NARRATOR: Despite being squeezed tightly between two large blocks,
the space is surprisingly light.
But if you want some fresh air, you'll need to go outside --
These windows don't open.
One of the problems here, a basic one, I would say,
is the claustrophobia, how to fight it.
That's why we have everything in white
with just splashes of different colors.
NARRATOR: You can use the stairs,
or there are other ways to get around.
And we can also climb up on the structure,
because this white structure, with the width we've got,
provides this opportunity to play, a bit, the Spider-Man.
NARRATOR: This home shows what can be achieved
with a very small space and a very big imagination.
For most of us,
living in such a confined space would be impossible.
But Jakub already has artists lining up to live there.
Let's hope none of them work on large canvases.
Now we're off to Australia
to see a house that was built to battle the bugs.
NARRATOR: We're back
with some of the most extreme homes in the world.
Our next house is down a tiny lane
in South Melbourne, Australia.
It looks like it's been encased in armor.
And, well, it has.
Its steel shield is designed to protect
against timber-eating terrorists -- termites.
But don't be fooled by its brutish facade.
Inside is a delightful minimalist home,
exquisitely lit by natural light.
A 19th-century one-bedroom cottage once stood on this site,
but architects Amy Muir and Bruno Mendes thought
the space had the potential for a much bigger home.
But not so big that they couldn't build it themselves.
MUIR: It's one of the most important things
that we really wanted to tackle,
was constructing a house using our own hands.
And this became the perfect testing ground for that.
NARRATOR: The house was a challenge for Amy and Bruno,
but they had one big advantage.
Bruno's father, Joe, works in steel construction.
The three of us basically built this house from scratch,
and it certainly was something
that we were very passionate about.
We were working full time during the week,
so it was literally weekends that we were building this on
for three and a half years.
It was long and laborious, but it was incredibly rewarding.
NARRATOR: Amy and Bruno's biggest challenge
was that they shared the site
with some unwelcome house guests of the six-legged variety --
termites.
These critters had already ripped
the original cottage to shreds,
so Amy and Bruno didn't want history to repeat itself.
Their solution was simple --
Build from materials
the termites couldn't get their teeth into.
We're in a high-termite zone within this area,
and so our primary and secondary structure is steel,
and, then, to introduce some warmth to the interior,
we brought in tallowwood,
which is a termite-resistant timber.
NARRATOR: Steelworker Joe built the steel structure.
Amy and Bruno focused on the style of the house.
MUIR: The concept of the front facade
is very much in keeping with what was originally here.
So, it's a simplified version of the original cottage.
NARRATOR: Though now it looks more like a dark, armor-plated fortress,
complete with an opening front panel
that looks a bit like a drawbridge.
MUIR: The idea of the drawbridge
is effectively to provide privacy to the front bedroom.
It acts as a curtain or a blind,
whilst also providing natural light from above.
NARRATOR: Once you enter the house,
it appears to break the laws of physics.
It looks larger on the inside than from the outside.
This illusion is created by inventive use of natural light.
Each space provides -- It has its own natural light.
The light also allows for the play of light across the wall.
It dances across the wall during the day,
which is something that we really enjoy being part of.
NARRATOR: There's a skylight running from one end to the other
that floods the house with sunlight.
The architects used their space cleverly.
The lot that once held a cramped one-bedroom cottage
now holds a two-bedroom open-plan house.
They even found the space
to keep a palm tree from the original shack
in the center of the home.
The concept of the house is really about
using every inch of space.
NARRATOR: And every square inch is utilized.
The staircase, designed and built by Bruno's father,
provides ample storage,
negating the need for space-hogging closets.
Law Street house is a small house with big ideas --
A bug-proof building that hides a light and airy home
behind its austere protective shield.
This extraordinary home
sits on the highest point of New York City
and has its own secret history.
It was built in 1928 by the head of a religious sect.
She wanted to create a home fit for a king --
or, in this case, the rumored Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
No expense was spared.
She put in marble floors, gold-leaf trimmings,
and ceilings straight out of the Sistine Chapel.
She poured so much money into the house,
she and her followers had to live cheaply
in modest houses on the estate.
Eventually, the money ran out.
When the owner died in the late '50s,
the house was abandoned and fell into disrepair.
It remained that way for 30 years,
until it was bought in 1987
and restored to its former glory,
a project that lasted 25 years.
The new owners have built a time machine,
transporting guests straight back to New York's jazz age.
The first thing you notice outside
is the sheer size of the building.
It's a whopping 15,000 square feet.
Inside reflects the complete and utter splendor
of the art-deco furnishings.
The ceilings were painted by the same artisans
who worked on the Plaza Hotel in New York.
And the chandeliers were brought from the hotel itself.
Trying to match the home's original features
meant looking far and wide.
The marble floor of the master-bedroom suite
was found in the Vatican.
And the main staircase
was made from walnut imported from France.
The house is packed with delightful period features.
There are five powder rooms, one of which
boasts an original Tiffany stained-glass window.
There's a billiard room with slot machines,
all standing on an alligator-leather floor.
And there are six hand-carved marble fireplaces.
Chapel Hill Mansion
may have been built for the Second Coming,
but it's ended up as a love letter
to the more earthly pursuits of the Roaring '20s.
Our next stop is a home in Switzerland
built for an owner with a special love of books.
NARRATOR: We've seen a house with its own pyramid,
a home squeezed in between two buildings,
and a house built to be bug-free.
Our next house is in Switzerland,
close to the banks of Lake Zurich.
It's a modern family home with bold splashes of color,
specially designed for a book lover.
The house is owned by Robert Levy-Frohlich
and his wife, Ariane.
When they inherited the home
that had been in Ariane's family since 1947,
they faced a common dilemma --
What to do with their new-found property.
Sell it, live in it, or knock it down and rebuild.
The question was, should we move into this house
or we should sell it
or should we build a new house on the same grounds?
And finally we decided we'd build a new house here,
and we're very happy that we took this decision.
NARRATOR: The Levy-Frohlichs decided to knock down the old building
and start from scratch.
But settling on a design for the new home
with their architect took quite a while.
LEVY-FROHLICH: It took us about a year and a half
to get to the final plans,
and it wasn't always easy,
'cause the architect always wanted to push his ideas,
and we had to fight to get our ideas also into the project,
and mostly the architect won.
But now we are happy that he won.
NARRATOR: The architect's plan
was to create clean lines and defined living spaces
using modernist materials --
concrete, stainless steel, and Tuscan marble from Italy.
There's an underground basement
connected by an elevator to the entrance hallway.
A first floor with the kitchen, dining room, and living room.
And spread across the top floor
are four bedrooms, an office, three bathrooms, and a mini gym.
Four balconies bring a splash of welcome color
to the monochromatic color scheme.
There is one part of the home where the architect
really rose to the occasion.
Tasked with creating a space for Robert's books,
he came up with a unique library shaped like a ship's prow.
LEVY-FROHLICH: This is my favorite room in this house,
and our architect had the idea to do it on two levels,
with an internal stairway.
I love this place very much.
It has a warm atmosphere,
and I like to sit here,
read a book, listen to music, drink a glass of wine.
NARRATOR: The library contains
the family's priceless collection of rare books
dating back seven generations.
The top floor holds the most valuable editions.
These old books are easily damaged by the sun's rays,
so walls permanently shield them from direct sunlight.
The lower floor is different.
The windows are 1 1/4 inches thick
and made from special glass that allows light in,
but cuts out 99.9% of the sun's damaging UV rays.
The windows also give the owners another valuable commodity --
Privacy.
They can see out, but passersby can't see in.
It's an inside and outside meld.
They unite in this room.
This gives it a very special feeling.
NARRATOR: The home has an equally unusual heating system.
It taps the earth's natural geothermal energy,
pumping up heat from deep below the surface.
This alternate energy source is very efficient
and provides a cheap source of heat.
LEVY-FROHLICH: We have two tubes going down 180 meters into the ground,
and we get warm water from down there --
10 degrees centigrade --
and we take the energy from the water
and give it back at 9 degrees centigrade,
and from the difference, we heat the house.
It's amazing.
NARRATOR: Robert and Ariane have been in their new home for eight years,
and already it feels like it's been part
of their very large family for generations.
I appreciate everything in this house,
and I love every corner of it.
NARRATOR: In the southern suburbs of Jakarta, Indonesia,
sits the little village of Bintaro,
and that's where we'll find our next extreme home.
It's a family home with a twist,
combining traditional Indonesian outdoor living
with contemporary architecture.
The house was built by architect Tonny Suriadjaja,
and, from the start, he was faced with a real challenge.
What my client and also my friends
asked for this project
is to build their dream and beautiful house,
but they have a very limited budget for this kind of project.
So, I tried to have an idea
to using the recycled material and the local material.
NARRATOR: If the only way to fulfill the plan and stay on budget
was to use recycled materials,
Tonny decided to turn this into a positive
rather than a negative
and let the materials enhance his design.
The unique patchwork design of the front of the home
is a result of the recycled windows
coming in different shapes and sizes.
But it works.
Tonny pushed every aspect of the plot to the max,
using the surroundings to create a home
that feels part of the landscape.
In Jakarta City, it is very rare
to have the wide-open front yard in front of your house
because mainly of the security issue.
Normally, they have a big yard at the back of the house.
NARRATOR: But Tonny went against the norm
and built the house far back on the lot,
creating a large front garden.
Now the home flows from the open lower floor into the garden
and the public park out front.
To get from the ground floor to the next level is a staircase
with a twist.
Inspired by the artist M.C. Escher,
Tonny built the staircase
at a 15-degree angle to the rest of the house.
SURIADJAJA: I tried to skew a bit the plan of the stair
a few degrees from the other room plans,
so by doing this,
we have, like, some kind of a distortion effect.
At some point of view,
you will see the stair as if it was holding
the main portion of the building itself.
NARRATOR: While the ground floor is for socializing and entertaining,
the top floor is more private, with bedrooms and bathrooms.
Tonny's use of secondhand materials
has created a first-class home
with its own individual personality.
Even the front gate is made of reused steel bars
of all shapes and sizes.
The salvaged items
also offered practical solutions to age-old problems.
The unglazed terra-cotta tiles on the roof
are excellent insulators --
not keeping the house warm, but cooling it down.
They transmit 70% less heat into the house,
reducing the need for air conditioning.
Tonny's mantra of "Create something new from something used"
has created a family home with a unique personality.
Now we'll head to the English countryside
and a subterranean home that's built for stealth.
NARRATOR: Welcome back to "Extreme Homes."
We've had stealth bombers and even stealth ships.
How about a stealth home?
Hidden underground in the heart of the English countryside
is a home that makes a real statement,
but likes to stay hidden from view.
Underhill house was built by architect Helen Seymour-Smith.
Helen wanted to build a house of contradictions --
subterranean, but warm and light.
We had a really unique opportunity
to create something really special.
I guess you might describe it as loft living underground.
It's flooded with light, it's airy, it's --
It's fab. We like it.
NARRATOR: Building a modern house in such a traditional area
can be difficult.
But it was this modernism that became the home's savior.
We're so lucky to have this site
in the beautiful Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The downside of it is,
the planning permission is really hard to get,
but it was granted under a special rule,
which allows new houses in open countryside
only if they're considered to be
truly outstanding and groundbreaking
and to represent the highest standards
in contemporary architecture.
NARRATOR: This house is certainly groundbreaking
in every sense.
They dug out 2,300 tons of rock from the hillside,
right under the original 300-year-old barn.
Going underground and hiding most of the house
allowed them the freedom to create something very hip,
leaving a traditional-looking shell above.
SEYMOUR-SMITH: Building underground
and being basically invisible from anywhere public
has allowed us to build something very un-Cotswolds
and very strikingly modern.
NARRATOR: The house is single story.
The main house consists of an open-plan kitchen,
a living and dining area, a master suite,
and three additional bedrooms,
all with their own bathroom facilities.
Because it's built into the hillside,
the rooms can reflect sound.
There are drop ceilings that act as acoustic baffles,
so the open space is never too noisy.
The heating is modern, too.
It uses solar energy.
But it doesn't just capture it.
It also holds onto it in what's called passive solar heating.
SEYMOUR-SMITH: A passive house is one which is highly insulated.
It's totally airtight,
so it's not losing any heat at all.
It's also heated by the sun.
Very importantly, this triple glazing facing south,
so that allows all the sun's heat in, traps it inside.
NARRATOR: This trapped energy is then used to heat the rest of the house,
using what's known as mechanical ventilation with heat recovery --
a boring title for a clever idea.
SEYMOUR-SMITH: The ducts that you can see around,
they are constantly sucking hot, stale air out of wet spaces --
So, bathrooms and kitchens.
And they use the heat from that to preheat incoming fresh air.
So, there is a constant supply
of beautiful fresh air in the place,
and practically no need to heat it at all.
NARRATOR: Even the water is heated by the sun.
SEYMOUR-SMITH: The roof on that side of the barn,
instead of using slate, we used toughened glass tiles
over something like a kilometer of black-rubber tubing,
through which water is pumped,
and that is our very low-tech, great, big solar panel,
which provides the majority
of the hot water requirements of the house.
NARRATOR: The house is so energy efficient
that there's some left over,
which the owners sell to the local power supplier,
earning them some extra cash.
It brought in $250 last year.
As well as recycling energy,
the house recycles building materials.
The floor screed is made out of crushed glass bottles
instead of aggregate.
The concrete-block walls are made out of recycled sawdust.
Outside, the paving slabs
use the byproduct of the china clay industry.
So, it's all about reusing materials wherever possible,
but also choosing appropriate materials
for the job they're trying to do.
NARRATOR: Underhill House is a very English cocktail of old and new
mixed to create a fresh wave of modern architecture,
one that pushes boundaries, works with the landscape,
and conserves energy.
We're off to Germany
and a home built inside an abandoned water tower.
NARRATOR: We're taking a tour
of some of the most extreme homes in the world.
Our next extreme home is a few miles north of Berlin, Germany.
It used to be an East German water tower.
Now it's a seven-story home, complete with viewing platform
and its panorama of a nature reserve.
Richard Hurding and Sarah Phillips
first fell in love with the historic landmark in 2002
while on a bike ride.
But it took them four years of negotiation
with the local authorities
before they were allowed to buy it.
The tower originally belonged to the town,
and when we came along to the town
and said we'd like to turn the tower
into a house for ourselves,
part of the deal was basically we came up with a concept
that would create a viewing platform for the public.
And with this idea, then the town accepted suggestions
and gave us the tower for 99 years.
NARRATOR: Ironically, the only way to obtain their isolated dream home
was to give up their privacy and share it with the locals.
Once over the hurdle of red tape,
there was the rather large problem
of the water tank itself.
It had to be removed before any construction could begin.
The main body of the water tank was cut out
with a diamond cutter
and, through the window, taken out with a crane.
But the tank itself, in its original existence,
held...how much?
200 tons of water.
Yeah.
So, it was quite a feat to get the tank out.
Where we're standing right now is what was the old water tank.
These pieces here -- We've got four of them --
are actual pieces of the old water tank itself.
NARRATOR: Removing the tank took 10 people four weeks.
Finally, work on the overall structure could begin,
supervised by a Berlin-based architect.
First the team built a second tower inside the original.
PHILLIPS: The facade itself -- this brickwork --
is only one brick thick,
so inside, actually, what we've done
is built a new tower within the existing tower
to give us insulation
and obviously against the cold in winter.
NARRATOR: As well as providing heat insulation,
the inner tower helps stabilize the seven-story building
and supports the new floors.
But even then, the 69-foot water tower still moves in the wind.
The building still has
a certain amount of movement in it,
and this is because it's lighter than it was before.
It did have 200 tons of water in it.
And because there are links with the lift tower,
there's movement due to people going up and down on the stairs
and through wind movement.
Visitors are quit surprised by the movement.
That's for sure.
It did happen once, through a hurricane,
we really, physically, moved.
NARRATOR: Richard and Sarah's 1,500-square-foot home
is spread over seven levels.
Yes, this is a home built for fit people.
The entrance and Sarah's office is on the first floor,
while Richard's is one floor up.
The third floor holds the master bedroom.
The bathroom is on the next level
and is suspended above the floor.
There's a second entrance on the fifth floor,
by way of an outside stair.
There's also a guest bathroom and a storage room.
The sixth floor, which housed the water tank,
is now the couple's kitchen and dining area.
But the best is saved for last.
The seventh-floor living room has a majestic 360-degree view,
and right at the top is the viewing platform.
It's open to the public,
who access it via an elevator tower and across a small bridge.
Fortunately for Richard and Sarah,
it's only open at specific times,
so in down moments,
they can have it all to themselves.
Tower living has proved a real plus for the owners.
For me, it's really living in a vertical space,
which is quite special in itself.
PHILLIPS: We've created a new existence for an old building,
and that's something that brought new life
into a derelict tower.
NARRATOR: Despite having to share their home with sightseers,
Richard and Sarah are delighted they took a chance
on their unusual home.
Each day in the tower feels still very fresh and new,
and that when I'm in the tower,
it very much feels that I'm at home.
But when I look at the tower from a distance, I think,
"Goodness. I live there?" [ Chuckles ]
NARRATOR: This extreme home is in Zapopan, Mexico,
right in the center of the country.
With a free-flowing open floor plan,
what makes it really unusual
is that this is an inside-out house.
The living room is outdoors,
making the most of the warm native climate.
While indoors is this stunning freshwater pond,
providing peace and tranquility to this unique family home.
Known as Casa FF,
it was built for the owner, his wife,
and their three daughters
on a lot measuring just 1/5 of an acre.
Architect Jorge Luis Hernandez Silva's goal
was to create a house that felt like a modern work of art.
The most distinctive feature is a cantilevered wing
that appears to float in midair.
It's made of steel lying on stone and sticks out 36 feet.
[ Speaking Spanish ]
INTERPRETER: What we have here is this huge floating structure.
There aren't any columns.
The idea is that the floor above feels like it's floating,
as if the whole space is flying.
NARRATOR: The floating rooms above
create an outdoor living space underneath.
There are no doors, walls, or windows.
It's a room completely open to the garden.
If it rains, weatherproof curtains hidden in the overhang
can be dropped to keep out the downpour,
and if it's really stormy,
there are hidden concertina doors
that pull out and enclose the space.
Keeping up the theme of mixing the indoors with the out,
Jorge built this stunning freshwater pool inside.
The layout of the home is open and clean.
It's bathed in sunlight,
and this natural illumination
is complemented by an automatic lighting system.
The house is designed to flow from one room to the next.
The modern dining room, the internal glass balconies,
all come together to make the house feel free and open.
The bedrooms follow the same philosophy.
This is the girls' bedroom.
It's open plan, but, girls being girls,
they want their privacy,
so they made their own spaces using bookcases.
INTERPRETER: Inside this big area,
each of the girls has their own personal space,
where she can work and sleep.
Somewhere she can feel is her own.
NARRATOR: The home is built from a wide range of materials,
both locally sourced and imported from afar.
Local concrete, bricks, steel, and sand
were used to build the home's basic structure.
[ Speaking Spanish ]
INTERPRETER: The wood we can see here is zebrawood,
which we've also used for most of the doors.
And this is concrete, left completely rough.
I love the idea
of putting totally different materials together.
They create an effect of tension,
one material alongside the other.
NARRATOR: The floor on the ground level is rectified porcelain.
The staircase is beechwood,
and the wood used
on the terrace and in the bathrooms is coumarou --
a tropical wood imported from Brazil.
By bringing the inside out and the outside in,
Jorge has broken the rules,
but, in the process, created a delightful family home.
Now we're heading to Seattle, Washington,
to see a dream house ideal for kids of all ages.
NARRATOR: We're back
with some of the most extreme homes in the world.
Our next home, just outside Seattle,
brings out the child in all of us.
Perched 17 feet off the ground amongst the fir trees,
this secret hideaway is Jack's Tree House,
the perfect getaway for anyone with a sense of adventure.
Whoo-hoo!
When Nancy and Jack Forsberg built the home in 2011,
they said it was for their 10-year-old son, Jack.
But who are they kidding? They clearly love it, too.
And who wouldn't,
in this getaway where you leave your age at the door?
With their main house in a forest
and top tree-house builder Pete Nelson as a neighbor,
the choice of construction was a no-brainer.
My husband decided one morning on the way to work to --
He called me and said, "Call Pete Nelson.
Let's build a tree house."
So this is the end product of just some wonderful designs
and a lot of hard work.
The 38½-ton wooden structure
is bolted onto five supporting trees --
three at the front and two at the rear.
Because we get a lot of heavy winds here in the Seattle area,
we needed to have some brackets specially made
so then when the wind comes and the trees move,
that the tree house actually moves with the trees.
This whole tree house actually slides like this,
both on this big bracket and then the other two bolts
that are on the three front trees.
NARRATOR: Such an adventurous home needs a bold entrance,
so how about a rope bridge,
one that Indiana Jones would be proud of.
FORSBURG: You walk across it kind of carefully.
It's a little wobbly,
but it's a very fun way to enter into the tree house.
We call it "intruder alert." [ Laughs ]
'Cause you definitely feel it in the tree house
when someone's coming across the suspension bridge,
so it's kind of the multi-purpose bridge
we got going on here. [ Laughs ]
NARRATOR: Jack's Tree House may look like it's built just for fun,
but it's actually a fully functioning home
with 750 square feet, including the deck.
Budding adventurers need to eat,
so there's a dining area, living area, kitchen,
and a bathroom with an old-school sink.
While the kids are off playing explorers,
you can sit on the deck
and enjoy views of the forest and mountains to die for.
The house took five people four months to build.
They were fortunate to have been surrounded
with building materials that really do grow in trees.
FORSBURG: These are actually red cedar branches.
They came from Oregon,
and they are just so interesting in character.
What I love is that they're not perfect.
I love that they are all intertwined and all crooked.
NARRATOR: The exterior of the house is red cedar,
while the interior wood was built from Douglas fir trees.
The house is very warm inside.
That's because the walls of the tree house
are four inches thick and fully insulated.
FORSBURG: And now we're coming upstairs to where we sleep.
Again, because it's the bungalow style,
the roof is really angled,
so you have to be kind of careful
that you don't hit your head.
NARRATOR: The bedroom is not what you would call spacious.
There's just enough room for a queen and a twin,
but that does mean all bunking in together.
But it's perfect for sleep overs,
whether it's Jack and his friends
or Mom, Dad, and theirs.
This home brings out the child in all of us.
If you thought the entrance to this house was cool,
check this out for a thrilling exit.
Whoo-hoo!
This is the funnest thing ever!
NARRATOR: Now we're going to Spain
to see a home that's a real cliffhanger.
NARRATOR: Welcome back to "Extreme Homes."
Our next home perches high on a Spanish cliff
overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar.
Casa Methesis is a five-bedroom home
built especially for this particular location
and its stunning view.
On a clear day, you can see all the way to Africa.
Casa Methesis is a true labor of love.
It took owners Gotzon Badiola and his partner, Jose,
10 years to find the site.
Even then, they weren't 100% sold,
so they sat and watched it.
We observed it for a year
before actually picking it up, buying it,
to see how the sun moved here, how the winds moved,
and a year later, we purchased it.
NARRATOR: The deed signed, it was now down to architect friend Alfonso
to come up with a design
that would properly reflect the location.
BADIOLA: He said, "Gotzon, congratulations.
You're a brave man. I'd love to do something here."
And I think he did something marvelous here.
NARRATOR: The first challenge was the site itself.
Construction on cliffs is tough enough,
but this one was unstable,
so Alfonso put in a special support system.
Sounds simple enough on paper,
but in practice, that meant drilling 69 micropilings
27 feet into the cliff.
Each hole was a foot and a half in diameter
and was filled with concrete and steel
to provide foundations for the home,
as well as stabilizing the cliff top.
This house, in essence, is sewn onto the rock.
It's fusioned onto the rock.
That's what prevents this house,
someday, if there's any seismic movements,
of sliding into the ocean.
NARRATOR: There are two ways to access the home --
a stone stairway cut into the rock,
which starts by a four-car garage
and climbs 66 feet to the home at the top.
And for the less adventurous, there's another way up,
especially for well-dressed dinner guests in heels.
Let's face it.
Haute couture and rock climbing are not a good match.
What I decided to do was look for an elevator,
but we needed an inclined elevator here,
not an up-and-down elevator.
NARRATOR: Elevators that go at an angle aren't that common,
but Gotzon and Jose found one that worked for the site.
And it transformed their home's stylish entrance
into a theme-park ride.
BADIOLA: Big kids, like myself,
feel like they're on a ride in Disney World.
I love it. I love it. I love the lift.
NARRATOR: The inside of the house is equally dramatic.
Take the living and dining area.
The 52-foot windows
offer an unparalleled view of the ocean towards Africa.
BADIOLA: All the light that's coming in right now,
it really brings to mind what this coast is called.
It's called "la Costa de la Luz,"
Coast of the Light.
And all year round,
the light is very impressive in this area here.
NARRATOR: In addition to the living area, the top floor holds
a huge kitchen, a spacious gym, and a library.
Each area is linked by glass walkways.
Downstairs, there are bedrooms, bathrooms, and a dressing room.
Gotzon had some very specific requirements
for his bedroom and bathroom.
I wanted the east morning sun entering my room,
bathing me with light in the morning while I shower.
I shower outdoors 330 days a year
because it's sunny 330 days a year.
NARRATOR: The home may be surrounded by sea,
but the owners wanted their very own bit of ocean
up at the house.
It's a heated pool, so all year round it's about 25 degrees.
This is one of my favorite spots around the house
because I've got the ocean, the pool,
the mountain behind me.
What else could I ask for?
I've got it all here.
It's peace, quiet, a place to think.
It's a great place to spend time.
NARRATOR: We've seen homes of all shapes and sizes
in locations everywhere.
From a house in Poland that's in a real squeeze
to a spiritual one in the Hamptons
with its own pyramid
and a converted water tower in Germany.
But all of these houses have something in common.
To their owners, they're simply home, sweet home.
Thanks for watching "Extreme Homes."