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NARRATOR: Not everyone lives in a suburban tract house,
or wants to.
But a fire station, a missile silo, a cave?
As long as you're not encroaching upon any neighbors,
you can just dig out and make another room, no problem.
NARRATOR: What about a submarine?
They would go up in here, they could get a breath.
In an emergency, this could save their life.
NARRATOR: Stick around for a tour
of some amazing living spaces,
and meet the people whose creativity and vision
made it all possible.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
In the mountains surrounding Caniles, Spain,
people have been digging caves
to create rustic and economical living spaces for centuries.
When Martin Rawlings found a primitive cave
with a stunning view,
he decided to expand it into a full-size mountainside home.
The home, named Piedras Vivas, now boasts six bedrooms,
six bathrooms, two living areas,
a kitchen, a dining room, an office, and a sun deck.
But it hasn't always been this way.
When Martin bought it, it was primitive, to say the least.
This place was in need of a serious amount
of tender loving care.
That's putting it politely.
It was actually just a few holes in an embankment --
one electric socket, one tap.
NARRATOR: The cave used to house donkeys, goats, and chickens,
and there was a shaft in the ceiling where feed was dropped
from the top of the hill,
a useful feature 200 years later.
Ventilation and light -- very important in cave properties.
The cave, they say, has to be able to breathe.
Giving that I call the property "Living Stones,"
I thought to myself,
"Well, I must respect these time-honored traditions."
NARRATOR: With ventilation in place,
Martin's next task was figuring out how to get to his new home.
The access was precarious.
You could only just get a small vehicle along here.
NARRATOR: Martin hauled in more than 200 truckloads
of dirt and gravel and literally tons of boulders
and built himself a road.
You don't understand or appreciate
the real size of those boulders.
Some of the boulders we used were at least a ton,
ton-and-a-half each.
NARRATOR: There are so many benefits to living in a cave.
Because of the natural insulation,
the inside temperature stays a perfect 74°,
even though it can reach 100° in the summer
and below freezing in winter.
RAWLINGS: You don't need air conditioning,
and you don't need central heating.
I sleep as soundly as it's possible to sleep
in my cave bedroom.
NARRATOR: Another added bonus to living in a cave
is that if you ever want more space,
all you have to do is carve out another room.
As long as you're not encroaching upon any neighbors,
you can just dig out and make another room, no problem.
NARRATOR: However, what really drove Martin
to undertake this massive project
wasn't even inside the house.
What attracted me was the view
because we're right on the edge of a beautiful natural park.
I thought, "Okay, the place is really rough,
"but with time and a little effort,
could probably turn it into quite a nice family home."
NARRATOR: These days,
Martin can't imagine life outside of Caniles.
RAWLINGS: This is real Spain.
What you see is what you get.
If somebody had told me some years before I came here
that I'd end up living in a cave house,
I would have thought they were crazy.
NARRATOR: It doesn't seem so crazy
when you see Martin's priceless view
from his ever-growing cave home,
a home that is miles away from primitive.
We're in Saint Paul, Minnesota,
where Petronella Ytsma and Mark Sauer
search the city for their future home.
It was the towers and turrets
on this turn-of-the-century firehouse that caught their eye.
Our HGTV host Tony Frassrand just had to check it out.
FRASSRAND: And you thought what?
Well, I thought, "Oh, my God.
How can you live without a turret, you know?"
Because everybody needs a good turret.
Everybody needs a good turret in their lives.
Now it's a two-story home and work space for the couple.
Inside, they've got plenty of living space
featuring modern decor.
Mark and Petronella live on the second floor.
The grand room includes space
for lounging, dining, and cooking.
And the building now has two bedrooms and two baths.
An office is tucked away beside the kitchen,
which was formerly used to store horse feed.
Renovating this room was a challenge.
Physically, doing this floor, for me, was the most difficult.
I spent 2½ days sanding,
and the third day in the bathtub, drinking cognac.
The remaining space on the second floor
was originally a firemen's hangout.
Here, they ate, relaxed, and took care of the horses.
When the bell rang,
the firemen would descend to the first level
by way of a spiral staircase instead of a pole.
This former garage is now Mark's workspace,
punctuated by 100-year-old doors.
FRASSRAND: I mean, that's like opening a door to history, really.
I hate to sound so cheesy, but, really.
It is, and if you can imagine an old horse-drawn wagon in here
and they'd bring the horses around,
and they'd hook them up and take off and go put out a fire.
NARRATOR: The building's condition is most evident
in the first-floor storage room,
which remains untouched
since Mark and Petronella first moved in.
The entire thing was false, drop ceiling,
and dark green paneling, like this.
I'll never forget that first --
you know, that first view of this place.
Like, "Ugh, oh, my God."
The couple opened up the ceiling
and added personal touches
throughout the historic fire station.
Obviously, there's a history here,
and I get to share it for a while.
The architecture first attracted the couple,
but now it's the home inside that keeps them there.
After traveling in style
with a collection of vintage travel trailers,
this Texas couple decided to park the party
in their own backyard.
This puppy cranks up and down
so you can take it on the road with you.
Everybody needs a portable Tiki bar.
What'll it be?
[ Laughs ]
NARRATOR: Welcome back.
We're on a journey to uncover the most unusual homes
from around the world.
In the desert terrain of El Paso, Texas,
it can be almost impossible to find a grassy place
to kick back and relax.
Since they couldn't find one,
photographer Marty Snortum and his wife,
custom boot designer Nevena Christi, built one.
And I'm Nevena.
BOTH: Welcome to our trailer court!
NARRATOR: Marty and Nevena wanted a place
to get away from it all,
and they also had a shared passion
for vintage travel trailers.
So when they had the opportunity to buy the parking lot next door
to where they live and work,
it was a no-brainer.
They decided to hit the open road
with an American pastime in their own backyard.
We sort of got one trailer, and we really liked it.
And then we saw that other people had stuff
we thought was really cool, and the trailers grew,
and then, of course, you want to make it look good.
And then we thought all our friends could come over
and stay in them and we could have a big party and...
Then it just got out of control!
But there's a method to their madness.
Each trailer outside has its own little theme going on.
But it is accurate to the year of the trailer.
What we have, I would say, starts in the '30s,
ends in the '70s,
and it's what we, in our own not-normal,
strange way of existence, think are these,
just, gems of what existed in these different years.
What we've got here is a 1947 Vagabond Gypsy.
The Vagabond trailers were very five-star.
The wood -- beautiful wood,
beautiful details, chrome hinges.
It's got all the comforts of home.
It's everything you would want.
This is a 1954 Silver Streak,
and I did it to look kind of like the Queen Mary
on the inside.
It's sort of Deco-nautical.
And the bar trailer -- well, what can we say?
Oh, I'm going in.
This puppy cranks up and down
so you can take it on the road with you.
Everybody needs a portable Tiki bar.
What'll it be?
[ Laughs ]
The one right behind us is a '50s Kenskill,
and this trailer has the coolest kitchen.
It's for the foodie in all of us.
NARRATOR: These vintage trailers were in various conditions
when Marty and Nevena acquired them.
Some have been knocked down all the way to the frame
and brought back up,
and some we have bought previously restored.
This '60s Holiday House is an example of one
that Marty and Nevena rebuilt from the frame up.
They wanted the inside
to reflect the sleek, modern lines of the outside.
Next door is this '48 Kit Chateau.
This is our five-star, backyard bedroom suite.
Our guests love this one.
It's the classiest trailer.
I did it like Clark Gable's dressing room.
This is probably one of my favorites.
This is a 1936 Bowlus Road Chief.
There's only about 20 of them around, left,
and it's just an awesome trailer.
This was an original
Pennsylvania fire department lookout trailer.
They were up there sleeping in this trailer,
keeping us safe in style.
NARRATOR: So, what's it like to have your own private trailer park?
We basically can't wait for Friday night.
We call it party night.
That's when Marty and Nevena,
along with a slew of family and friends,
often can be found partying in the courtyard
and even sleeping in trailers.
But the most committed resident is their son, Trip.
He spent a week and a half in the backyard once.
While Marty and Nevena love their vintage trailers,
it's hard to get them to pick a favorite.
My favorite trailer is the next one.
They're snowflakes.
They're all so different,
and there's so many things about each one
that make it a favorite.
Hey, thanks for hanging out with us in our trailer court.
NARRATOR: Converted homes frequently have unique problems,
especially when the home is a hulk of black metal
weighing over 21 tons and floating in water.
RAY: So, one of our big hurdles was,
how do you keep a black submarine cool?
And one of things we did was we sprayed this on.
It took a lot of time to do it.
It would stalactite, and they would have to cut it.
It was labor-extensive, I assure you.
NARRATOR: We visited unique homes around the world
that at one time were a fire station, a travel trailer,
and even a cave.
On the north fork of Long Island, New York,
is the small town of Greenport.
In the summer it's a bustling tourist town,
but in the winter it's quiet, with only 2,000 residents.
The docks are empty with only a few exceptions,
and at the end is an unusual sight.
It's a submarine, the U.S.S. Deep Quest,
and it's what Jonnie Ray calls home.
I put the "U.S.S." on for my own patriotic reasons,
but the original name was "Deep Quest,"
it dove with another submersible named "Alvin,"
and now this is my home.
NARRATOR: Outside, it's 42,000 pounds of steel
that's 42 feet long and 20 feet wide.
Inside, it's compact with a dining area, a kitchen --
or rather a galley --
an entertainment area,
a bathroom, nautically known as a "head,"
and, of course, the captain's quarters.
Lining the main entrance hatch
are hand-carved sculptures from Indonesia.
To the right of the steps is Jonnie's dining room.
As you can see, the table swings,
so if somebody wants to get in,
they just kind of slide on in, and then we put the table back.
NARRATOR: Across the room,
it took more than just a refrigerator
to make this galley feel like a kitchen.
There was a water fountain here originally.
I put a double sink in here.
We have 22 gallons of hot water and 110 to 120 of fresh water.
NARRATOR: Jonnie's water supply
is also used in his one bathroom, or head.
The head has a toilet, shower, and sink.
But the most complete room on the Deep Quest
is the captain's quarters.
Some of the work put into this room was a central air,
central VAC, central heat,
so this room is kind of self-contained in itself.
It has its own air conditioning, heating, and air filter.
NARRATOR: Keeping the rest of the sub livable
required spraying on polyurethane insulation.
One of our big hurdles was,
how do you keep a black submarine cool?
And one of things we did was we sprayed this on.
It took a lot of time to do it.
It would stalactite, and they would have to cut it.
It was labor-extensive, I assure you.
NARRATOR: The ladder in the main room
leads up to the conning tower,
and its tubes served an important purpose.
This is an air pocket.
Occasionally, they probably ran into a situation
where the divers or the people inside the boat needed air.
At one point, some of the boat would actually fill with water,
so they would go up in here,
where this would hold air, they could get a breath.
God forbid, in an emergency, this could save their life.
NARRATOR: The conning tower at the top of the ladder
is where the boat is controlled,
and it has 3 1/4-inch bulletproof Plexiglas
to protect Jonnie from pounding waves.
And that's what makes this boat very unique --
is that we could take it out in any kind of weather,
night or day.
NARRATOR: This Deep Quest is one of two exploratory submarines
built by Lockheed Martin in 1967.
Its deepest dive was 8,310 feet,
and it was the sub that found the sonar signature
of the Titanic.
Jonnie first bought it sight unseen,
and it was in terrible condition.
It was a shock.
Like, "What did I do? What did I buy?"
It was basically like a septic tank -- rusting, horrible.
The fins were falling off. It was terrible.
NARRATOR: It took 2½ years in Galveston, Texas,
with 6 skilled laborers working full-time
to make this submarine shipshape.
The Deep Quest is decommissioned and can no longer dive.
So to get it home, Jonnie and his friend,
Lieutenant Daniel Hood,
had to drive the U.S.S. Deep Quest
through Galveston, Texas,
to Greenport, Long Island, New York on the surface.
At 5 miles an hour,
it took them 58 days to go across country,
and it wasn't all fun and games.
We made the mistake once
of trying to leave the hatch in a storm,
and a big wave came,
and probably 500 gallons' worth of water
came down those stairs in one second.
Going out of that hatch was the big no-no.
We fixed that right away.
NARRATOR: Now Jonnie is safe in Greenport
in a home that suits him perfectly.
This is where I live. That's it.
I can't explain to you just how peaceful it is in here.
I'm very comfortable in here -- very.
NARRATOR: When this Washington, D.C. real estate broker
converted a 1920s apartment building,
he discovered that it was a favorite
of the presidential elite.
This is the original entrance to the restaurant and dining room,
and it's where Harry Truman and Bess Truman
would have passed through to go to dinner here.
It's now the back of my media room.
NARRATOR: We're back on our tour
of some of the most interesting places people call home,
including a Spanish cave and a submarine in Long Island.
Washington, D.C. is home to many historic apartment buildings,
many of which were built in the 1920s.
Real-estate broker Ed Carp lives in one of these buildings
in the Cleveland Heights neighborhood
just north of Dupont Circle.
Ed waited and searched for 10 years
before finding his new home.
The 3,300-square-foot co-op apartment has 3 bedrooms,
2½ baths, a spacious kitchen,
expansive office and sitting area,
a cozy media room,
and an enormous living and dining room
with 10-foot ceilings.
So, this unit has had two lives.
The first was as a dining room and restaurant
when it was originally built in 1928.
The restaurant went out of business in 1970,
and the daughters of the American Revolution
leased it as ballroom and office space.
NARRATOR: At the corner of Connecticut Avenue
and Tilden Street, Tilden Gardens restaurant
served Washington, D.C.'s residents for 50 years.
Its most famous patrons were President and Mrs. Harry Truman,
who lived in the complex during the 1930s and 1940s
when he was a U.S. senator.
My friend in the building has a copy of an old grocery bill
that was delivered to Mrs. Truman on June 1, 1940,
where she got $31.16 worth of groceries delivered,
which I imagine paid for quite a bit of groceries
back at that time.
NARRATOR: Ed's not sure why the restaurant closed in 1970,
but he did find a peculiar review
published only a few months before.
"The restaurant is decorated in early senior citizen."
[ Chuckles ]
"It looks like a place where no liquor is served,
and no liquor is."
And, now, I didn't write this, folks.
NARRATOR: The old restaurant could only be entered
through an interior door in the lobby,
so Ed decided to build a new outside entrance
while preserving the original door inside.
CARP: This is the original entrance
to the restaurant and dining room,
and it's where Harry Truman and Bess Truman
would have passed through to go to dinner here.
It's now the back of my media room.
NARRATOR: A new wall with extra soundproofing
became the back wall of the media room.
It's perfect for screening movies
with a giant 8-foot projection screen
and custom sound system.
CARP: I also have the original old exit sign
that would have been in the dining room.
NARRATOR: Ed's scariest moments
came when he decided to move the other exit sign.
CARP: I turn off the electric,
not realizing that emergency exit signs go on
when the power goes off.
So I turn off the electric, thinking I'm so smart,
and I get up on a ladder and go to cut that right out of there,
and I blew myself off the ladder
and traveled about 15 feet with my hair raised on end.
It was funny, sort of.
NARRATOR: The next big project was adding three bedrooms
and creating private quarters in the back of the apartment.
In each bedroom, small windows were expanded,
cutting through the old original brick.
New, larger windows let significantly more light in.
The former ladies' restroom was gutted
and transformed into Ed's master bedroom.
The old kitchen was converted into a private guest suite
with bedroom and full bathroom.
The third bedroom serves as the guest office
and completes this part of the residence.
So, this room used to be a private dining room
off of the ballroom,
but it's now my office, I'm proud to say.
NARRATOR: Four vintage doors open into the office,
which is also a library and sitting room.
It's where Ed spends most of his time talking on the phone,
watching television, smoking the occasional cigar,
and meeting with real-estate clients.
I don't have an office I go meet my clients at.
All my clients come to my house.
They come into the space, and they get a sense of,
"Oh, this is a guy who has an appreciation
"for style and aesthetics
and the charm of old buildings and has a respect for that."
So that's great for my business.
NARRATOR: A completely new room was designed for the kitchen.
It's decorated in the period style of the 1920s
with vintage-style cabinets and Carrara marble.
But there's one room Ed didn't change.
So, this is the old men's room,
which I bought when I bought the apartment.
I got every man's dream to have in his own home -- a urinal.
NARRATOR: After creating his dream apartment,
Ed has started searching somewhere
in the nation's capital for his next conversion.
When the cornerstone United Methodist Church in Saco, Maine,
went up for sale,
photographers Max and Lisa Jones felt compelled
to walk through its front doors.
We came in and looked at it,
and I was sold before I climbed the stairs.
I fell in love with it immediately,
but I was very intimidated by it.
Max and Lisa were house hunting for an unconventional space.
When the Methodist congregation moved out,
the couple was ready to move in.
They loved the notion
of owning an 8,000-square-foot open-floor plan
steeped in New England history.
The congregations have to move for several different reasons.
They grow or they can't afford the heating
or the maintenance on the building,
and the tragedy is that these buildings get torn down.
And they're fixtures, they're landmarks,
and they're such beautiful, beautiful buildings
rich with history.
Max and Lisa were so excited
about their newly purchased church,
they moved in immediately after closing.
Today, the first level is home to the master bedroom and bath,
living room, Lisa's office, dining area, and kitchen.
Up the stairs,
the narthex serves as the entryway
to the formal sanctuary,
now home to Max's photography studio,
second living room, and formal dining room.
This is sort of the downstairs lounge area.
This was originally the rehearsal space for the church,
and there was also a daycare here.
And when they had their roast-beef suppers,
they, I think, would set up folding tables here.
They knew how most parts of the church building,
which dates back to 1878, were used, but not every part.
This is a big mystery to us.
It's almost like a ticket window or a coat check,
these little windows that open,
but I'm not really sure, originally, what it was.
Once they got a look at the kitchen,
they knew they had to call a professional
to handle the 100-year-old laminate-flooring tar adhesive.
A good friend of ours who restores antique properties
actually told us to lay newspaper down,
and then you just pour warm water over the newspaper,
let it sit for, you know, a few hours,
and it actually pulls the tar onto the paper.
They're not perfect maple floors or anything,
but I think it --
But they're funky pine floors.
Max and Lisa also had a welcome surprise
when they discovered an unexpected feature.
One of the big bonuses that we discovered
was that this building had an elevator
that they'd put in fairly recently.
So, this is the sanctuary.
These are the original floors,
and, as you can see, they have the marks here
that are from where the pews were.
So we're still trying to figure out
how to use the space to our advantage.
Right now it's a studio.
The biggest obstacle is also the biggest room in the home.
LISA: It's more expensive to heat it
than our actual mortgage payment is,
so we tend to wear a lot of sweaters in the winter
and try to run up and down the stairs as much as possible.
I love the idea of old buildings having some kind of new life,
and that's what really kind of what drew me to this.
It's been a fun project.
We haven't had too many disagreements, really.
And I usually end up giving in, don't I?
No, I give in.
Oh, I guess he gives in.
A little bit of amnesty combined with this former church
has restored Lisa and Max's faith
in creating a home they can love.
[ Bell tolls ]
This Kansas school teacher got more than he bargained for
when he decided to move his family underground for safety.
This 120-foot tunnel connects the launch-control building
with the launch-service building,
where the missile was housed.
NARRATOR: Our journey to find
the most interesting homes around
has taken us to a submarine in Long Island
and a cave in Spain.
When Kansas school teacher Ed Peden
bought a decommissioned missile silo,
he envisioned an underground home for himself
and so much more.
Located outside of Topeka, Kansas,
Ed and his wife, Dianna,
turned the 20,000-square-foot depot
for weapons of mass destruction into a peaceful sanctuary.
However, this missile site required a lot more work
than they bargained for.
We started with a flooded hole in the ground --
a couple of big concrete boxes well-built,
but flooded and trashed.
NARRATOR: The Pedens first had to drain all the water
out of the underground structure.
After almost a decade of renovations,
the Pedens' living space
consists of four bedrooms and two bathrooms,
as well as a second level that they added to house the kitchen.
And what used to be the launch-control center
is now their living room.
This is the room that the equipment
would have been in
that literally would have launched the missile.
Everything that happened on this property
was controlled in this room --
lighting, gates opening,
closing, doors opening and closing.
So this is a pretty intense power room, as well.
NARRATOR: The Pedens' silo was originally built in 1960
as an Atlas "E" missile site.
These sites were intended to act as nuclear deterrents to Russia
during the Cold War.
They were dubbed "coffin launchers"
because the missiles were stored horizontally
as opposed to vertically.
Only 27 Atlas "E" sites were ever built,
and all were decommissioned by 1965.
They consisted of two main structures,
including a control room and a bunker,
all connected by a long tunnel.
This 120-foot tunnel connects the launch-control building
with the launch-service building,
where the missile was housed.
The warhead was a 4-megaton hydrogen bomb,
a very, very powerful weapon of mass destruction.
It had a range of 6,000 miles
and could have been delivered
to almost anywhere in the northern hemisphere,
could easily have killed 50 million people
in a Russian city from this place.
NARRATOR: The Pedens turned part of the bunker into a music room.
ED: This was the diesel generator room,
and it was a very noisy room.
They could launch the missile
with the diesel-generated power produced in this room.
Converting this room was truly a challenge.
We started by painting the ceiling, painting the walls --
that was not a simple task.
This is a very large room.
Then we didn't know what do with these big cement pads
that were here in the middle,
so we built a stage over all of that.
NARRATOR: They also added an above-ground greenhouse
to funnel natural light into the underground structure.
Being underground is really pretty okay.
You do miss the sunlight
and being able to see what's outside through the windows,
and you miss that connection.
So being able to come upstairs
and have that opportunity to connect
and be in the light is really important.
It just adds to the fullness of our living space.
NARRATOR: The 34-acre property is characterized by a pond,
guest cabin, and several towers
made out of salvaged gasoline tanks.
They were built over the escape hatches to prevent water leaks.
Because of the medieval look to the towers,
the Pedens nickname their home "Subterra Castle."
This property is a grand property,
a unique property with historic significance,
and the castles sort of punctuate that for us.
NARRATOR: The Pedens created a castle of peace
from the relics of the Cold War.
Tucked inside one of Pawtucket's historic industrial parks
is Richard Sugarman's massive
but minimalist textile mill conversion.
With two floors and 9,000 square feet,
Richard was able to create a spacious home
that offered something for everyone.
Built by a clothing manufacturer in the late 1800s,
the building did not become a residence until 2012,
when Richard, Kimblyn, and their three children moved in.
It took 18 months to renovate the space to where it is now.
NARRATOR: Downstairs, there are three bedrooms for the kids,
while upstairs, Richard and Kimblyn share the entire level,
which includes a master suite.
Space was the key factor in Richard's design plan.
With 14-foot ceilings and no walls,
he was able to put together an open kitchen area
that kept the original building's design intact.
Creating a unified look to the home
wasn't Richard's only challenge.
The mill had been vacant for years
and fallen into complete disrepair
when Richard and his wife first discovered it.
The roof was Swiss cheese,
it leaked all through,
there was water everywhere --
water damage everywhere in the building.
Downstairs -- since we're in a floodplain
here and we're below grade,
we would have water from the river
coming into the building during rainstorms.
NARRATOR: This water damage
almost completely ruined the mill's original concrete floors.
We decided to clean up the cracked areas,
fill in the cracks with a putty substance,
and then go with the epoxy-poly-buffing new floor
that you see today.
NARRATOR: The building's poor state
didn't just create difficulty, it also offered inspiration.
The walls of the building, over the years,
became a hodgepodge of colors.
So what we tried to do
was maintain the feel of how we found the loft,
obviously clean up the dirty paint
and repaint, and leave the other area of the brick exposed --
if it was exposed when we found it.
NARRATOR: The gallery was one of the few areas
that retained the original dividing walls.
Although they've been removed to keep with the spacious design,
Richard found other ways to partition the room.
RICHARD: The walls have been painted so many times
that when we washed them down, we got this beautiful look.
In addition to that,
we followed through with the painting on the ceiling.
It's the only area of the mill where the ceiling is painted.
NARRATOR: Throughout the renovation,
Richard found ways
to keep much of the building's history on display,
including a steel beam used to transport textile loads
from one end of the mill to the other.
And above the master bed, the take-in door still remains.
These were actually massive doors that swung open,
where then there would be a chain-hoist system --
all manual --
where they would be able to bring up the material
to the second-floor level from the ground floor.
NARRATOR: Converting this 19th-century textile mill
into a spacious modern home was a challenging project,
but Richard is certain that he and his family
made the right decision.
Once it's done, you're like, "Ahh," you know?
This is the mill building of our dreams.
NARRATOR: Where some people may see primitive scrap wood,
this Canadian couple saw classic engineering
that withstood the test of time.
They wouldn't have had any power tools 150 years ago,
so we've got ax marks, and we kept them that way.
They look great.
NARRATOR: Welcome back.
We're on a journey
to uncover interesting homes around the world,
including a former restaurant, a submarine,
even a missile silo.
John Hawley never imagined he would end up living in a barn.
When asked his reasoning for such an undertaking,
he could only say...
Because my wife wanted to.
NARRATOR: It was actually Liz's dream
to turn an old barn into a home,
and luckily John was up for the challenge.
John hired a realtor to scout Ontario for the perfect space.
The realtor found a barn, but there was just one catch.
It's a century-old barn that we found about 100 miles from here.
We had it disassembled, numbered the pieces,
brought it down here, reassembled it,
and built a house around it.
NARRATOR: Now this five-bedroom and three-bath house
is their dream home,
boasting 30-foot-high ceilings and wide-open spaces
perfect for this musically inclined family
that likes to entertain.
We often have cocktail parties,
and we've had several recitals in here.
Our son's actually recorded a CD in here
because it's the perfect volume for drumming.
NARRATOR: Though the tall ceilings and added space
do come with their own set of challenges.
It makes cleaning really interesting.
NARRATOR: One of the more obvious challenges
was moving the structure from its original spot
to where the Hawleys wanted it,
especially considering the barn itself
was over 150 years old and practically falling down.
Because it was leaning, we had to pour the foundation,
put the posts up,
and then move the walls out a little bit
to compensate for the fact that the structure actually leaned.
It was too hard to try and straighten it out,
so we had to adapt the new structure around it.
NARRATOR: The bases of all the original posts
had succumbed to wood rot over the years,
and some portions had to be removed.
As a result,
the barn sits about 2 feet lower than it originally was.
The rest of the wood was grated by an engineer
so it could support the structure.
The Hawleys agree that the ceiling beams
are their favorite part.
They wouldn't have had any power tools 150 years ago,
so we've got ax marks right in the beams,
to cut them and shape them.
They're just as they were, and we kept them that way.
They look great.
NARRATOR: They also came up with an innovative way
to incorporate a bedroom into the old structure.
RICHARD: This is actually where the hayloft was in the barn,
so we didn't want to move any of the structures.
We wanted to keep the integrity
of the way the barn had been set up and fit the rooms into it.
NARRATOR: Such an open space,
it naturally called for lots of light.
RICHARD: We found that between all of the posts
we could fit these windows,
and they fit perfectly
all the way around the whole building
so it allows light to pour in during the day.
And then at night, actually, the light pours out.
So the whole building
looks almost like the roof is floating.
NARRATOR: Now that the renovations are complete,
the Hawleys love that they were able to keep the integrity
of the barn while creating a warm, inviting space
that they now call home.
We wanted it to be representative of history
but also very unique,
so we wanted to build a barn, and this is our dream.
NARRATOR: Most students can't wait to get out of school,
but the alumni of Benham Elementary School
in Benham, Kentucky, did more than save their hallowed halls.
They turned it into a unique home away from home
for others to enjoy.
Sandy Hodges isn't just the innkeeper,
she's also a former student.
It's pretty cool to be here.
And when you tell people that you went to school here,
to watch their face transform -- it's like, "Oh, really?"
NARRATOR: Benham is a tiny town
located in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains.
The community grew up alongside the local coal mines
in the early 1900s.
To educate the children of miners,
Wisconsin Steel Corporation built the school here in 1926,
and classes began onsite in 1928.
It continued educating students
from kindergarten to eighth grade until 1992,
when the school finally closed its doors.
Rather than let it fade away,
the school's alumni banded together
to convert it into an inn.
A lot of successful alumni lived here.
We've got lawyers, doctors,
all kinds of professional people
that have come right out of this building.
NARRATOR: The alumni had their work cut out for them.
HODGES: It had been very neglected.
I mean, it was a very major, major project to get this done.
NARRATOR: Heating and plumbing had to be installed,
the classrooms had to be subdivided
to create 30 guest rooms,
and new upgraded additions were added.
The alumni were determined to preserve artifacts
from the schoolhouse's former life.
These green lockers are just one example.
They're all over the building
just like they were back when the school was built.
You'll see the natural floor that was here.
You'll also see the actual wood floor
in some of the rooms that we rent now,
and we've restored those.
NARRATOR: The two-story building
features a wide variety of school memorabilia on display.
Its rooms, though, serve different purposes these days.
The inn's first-floor restaurant
used to house the principal's and nurse's office,
as well as the teachers' lounge.
The first-floor great room also had a very different past.
HODGES: As a student here,
we played classroom tournaments, we had plays,
we had bleachers here on the right,
we had lunch in the middle of the room.
Now we do class reunions, wedding receptions,
we have all kinds of functions in this room.
NARRATOR: The first floor also features a number of guest rooms.
The plaques on their doors denote the years
that a graduating class went to school there
during its original tenure,
from its opening in 1928 to its last graduating class in 1961.
Even though all the guest rooms
feature their own updated bathrooms,
the original boys' and girls' restrooms are still functioning.
Up to the second floor,
there's a reading room that once served as everything
from an art room to the guidance counselor's office.
Just down the hall is another room serving a new purpose.
HODGES: This is presently used as a conference room.
It's called the "Founders Room," and, as you can see,
it has a lot of the natural architectural design.
And this used to be the library when I went to school here.
NARRATOR: Like the first floor,
the second floor also features a number of guest rooms.
This was probably a sixth- or seventh-grade classroom,
and these are the natural floors in the room itself.
NARRATOR: A few doors down is a luxury room
that comes complete with its own Jacuzzi tub.
We are in room 1960,
which is the honeymoon suite, as you can see.
It's a little more elaborate and a little more up to date.
I never thought, when I was in school here,
that anyone would be in here
spending their honeymoon night in this particular room.
NARRATOR: While this place might be an inn to newcomers,
to Sandy and other former alumni who stay here on occasion,
it's far more than that.
It feels like home to me.
NARRATOR: In historic Philadelphia,
architects Kimberly and Rick Miller
augmented a derelict auto parts warehouse
to create a long, narrow, and very modern home.
The old brick walls weren't capable
of carrying the upper story structurally,
so these columns come up and support the beams above.
NARRATOR: We visited the homes around the world
that at one time were a restaurant, submarine,
even a cave.
Just a few miles from downtown,
in the northeast part of historic Philadelphia,
a neighborhood near the Delaware River called Fishtown
is changing dramatically.
Architects Kimberly and Rick Miller
are some of its newest residents.
They designed and built a modern three-story home
in a long, narrow building that was an old auto parts warehouse.
The couple, the family dog, and three cats
live in 3,400 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 3 baths.
When you're building in Philadelphia, too,
you're building on these layers and layers of history.
I felt like this place really did give us the opportunity
to do something modern without disregarding the past.
More than 120 years old,
the original building was a one-story warehouse
with a garage entry and brick walls on three sides.
The Millers' design preserved the brick,
but an iron structure was added
to support the two additional stories.
The old brick walls weren't capable
of carrying the upper story structurally,
so our engineer wanted us to come up with a system
where we carry the gravity loads
independent of the brick walls.
So these columns come up and support the beams above.
The original brick walls are still standing
and require some cleaning.
We love it, but it is just a pain
because we have to keep it clean
and it sheds almost like a living organism.
Kimberly and Rick also preserve the old pine beams
from the warehouse ceiling
by cutting them and using them as stair treads
and furniture in the living room.
Sadly, you can't really get new yellow pine anymore
that looks like this.
The couple chose bamboo for new cabinets
in the kitchen and on the kitchen ceiling.
Polished concrete with a smooth gravel aggregate
warms up the large space,
using a radiant heat system installed in the floor.
The design also maximizes sunlight
coming through the windows and doors,
a plan first worked out as a 3-D computer model.
RICK: We employed a model that enabled us
to study how the sun impacted the design
at any month or any time of day throughout the year.
NARRATOR: The computer design was accurate.
Light brightens every room.
From the front door,
the staircase leads to a separate tower
that contains Rick's office and architectural business.
Above the office on the third floor
is a gym, guest bedroom, and bathroom.
This unique floor plan places most of the living space
and a second tower at the back of the house.
The main floor combines a dining room, kitchen, and living room
into one large space.
Just above the main floor, up a second staircase,
is the family's private quarters,
which includes the master bedroom and bath
and one additional bedroom and a sun room
that faces west just off the third-floor terrace.
The two towers connect on the second floor
through an outdoor walkway,
a very short commute to Rick's office.
We have very similar ideas about design,
so that made it a little easier.
And it was hard for me to kind of back off
and let him actually really run with the design
'cause he really is more of the designer than I am.
And we wanted to have the living space
be a part of the garden space.
And because this property was so deep,
we were actually able to take advantage
of having two gardens -- one in front and one in back.
This is my garden, and this is the sun garden.
NARRATOR: From the start
Kimberly was drawn to the unusually shaped brick windows
that are now a feature of the sun garden.
We walked into this kind of derelict garage,
and the back was this space with these two windows,
and that was it --
that was my garden, and here you have it.
This is my garden, the shade garden.
NARRATOR: Surrounded by glass windows and doors,
the shade garden sits in the middle of the home
between the two towers.
Rick always wanted a goldfish pond,
so he designed one and stocked it with a hearty species
that can survive Philadelphia winters.
We call it the Lantern House.
Because at night it becomes a lantern.
At night, the house glows
from the street to the backyard garden,
and family and friends often gather in the heart
of the home -- the kitchen.
For me, it's a really nice way to live in the city.
When you're in a city with such history that Philadelphia has,
it was kind of hard to find a location
where we weren't feeling like we were destroying the fabric.
Here, I think we felt like we were able to enhance
what was here and add to the character.
Rick and Kimberly's modern design did more than enhance.
They preserved the historic features of a Philadelphia home.
From submarines to caves, fire stations to missile silos,
these domestic pioneers have proven
that you can take almost any space and make it home.