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NARRATOR: What makes a home an extreme home?
We're about to find out.
From the dazzling to the daring to the downright bizarre,
get ready to go inside
some of the world's most innovative spaces
and meet the homeowners
who dared to make their dreams come true.
This house is inspired by a hilltop village in Italy...
and this one by a breaching whale.
We'll see a floating home in London...
and fairy-tale apartments in Germany.
From construction to completion,
we're heading out of the ordinary
and into the world of extreme homes.
In Sarasota, Florida, this massive building looks
like a business compound or an apartment complex, but it's not.
This series of connected houses makes up one home --
a combination of Florida Art Deco
and sprawling Florence, Italy.
Homeowners Bob Lifeso and his wife
fell in love with it as soon as they walked through the gates.
ROBERT: Our architect and his wife
really, really liked Northern Italy,
and the house is designed like an Italian hill village.
And we have, for example, 17 different roof heights.
We have horizontal stripes,
very much like the Duomo in Florence.
NARRATOR: The house was designed
by noted American architect Don Chapel for his own family
and completed in 2001.
Each of the 12 rooms has its own personality.
Changes in dimension and color
make some rooms intimate; some open.
ROBERT: This great room is where we spend the majority of our time.
Here we have multiple wall heights and sizes
and different colors.
We must have about seven colors in this one room alone.
NARRATOR: The very modern living room has 17-foot-high glass walls.
But Chapel did design in a nod to the Italian theme.
ROBERT: This room's a big glass block,
but rather than just having a big concrete glass block,
he has this bridge going across.
It's not quite the Ponte Vecchio from Florence,
but it softens the outline.
It takes away from the massive bulk.
NARRATOR: All the other rooms around the courtyard
are connected through the big central space --
six bedrooms, eight bathrooms,
and several kitchen and dining areas.
Each room is unique with totally different sizes, colors,
textures, and dimensions.
ROBERT: The breakfast nook, for example, has a basket-weave ceiling --
very intimate, very cozy, very pleasant.
NARRATOR: The attention to space
is matched only by the attention to detail.
We have 30 lights in this room alone,
maybe 40 lights in the ceiling.
The electrician moved in for a month,
and they did nothing but pot and re-pot the lights.
The built-ins were made by a local artist in wood.
All the shelves, all the woodwork --
Everything in this house, including the doors,
the cupboards, the cabinets were built by this one man.
It took him a year, actually, just to do the woodwork.
NARRATOR: Outside, the design is equally meticulous.
ROBERT: We had no idea until we lived here
of the thought he put into it.
Even the position of the house --
It doesn't seem like a big thing,
but we face south-southeast.
So he picks up the sun in the winter, which warms the deck.
And in the summer, it's to the northwest side.
So we don't have the heat down here on the deck.
Other things he's done -- the color combination.
We have blue walls, purple walls, green walls --
all of which seem to blend together.
How he decided the palette is hard for me to believe.
NARRATOR: The result -- an expansive village of a home
where Art Deco meets luxurious Italian lifestyle.
40 minutes north of Madrid, Spain,
in the town of Pedrezuela,
is a house that breaks with tradition.
It's called the House of Wood, and it's easy to see why.
What's less obvious at first glance
is the reason it was built at all.
I wanted to have a house that would be part of the landscape,
and I wanted to have a house that, everywhere I look,
I can see nature, I can feel I'm part of it.
NARRATOR: So architect Uriel Fogue designed a special house
where every room either looks out across the valley
or into the central flowering garden.
The House of Wood is made out of seven modules
around a main courtyard that has a very beautiful garden.
NARRATOR: All seven modules were prefabricated, which cost less
and took just two weeks to assemble into a house.
The house is on a slope.
So Uriel put the kitchen, living room, and terrace
at the top of the structure for the best views.
The master bedroom, bathroom, and a walk-in closet
are downslope and underneath.
A second bedroom, bathroom, and study
run along the top of the courtyard.
And it's all connected by bridges.
Inside, the layout is up and down and somewhat irregular.
Outside, Uriel tied it all together
with simple exterior walls.
The materials we used in this project
are basically wood in the exterior facade.
NARRATOR: Basically red oak on both side walls and roofs.
Up on top, solar domes make hot water for the house,
and the roof was designed to drain all the rainwater
into the central courtyard.
Once inside, though,
all the wood gives way to sheets of thick white plastic.
The interior part is made out of this facade,
which gives a very nice light on the inside -- translucent,
sometimes-transparent textures on the inside.
NARRATOR: The plastic sheets flood the different rooms with light
but keep out a lot of the sun's heat.
There's a lot of light, especially in my room.
You can actually see through the wall of my room
and go into the bathroom,
and that is one of my favorite areas in this house.
NARRATOR: The bathroom is built into the slope,
so it's split level.
Isabel can take a shower
or fill up the floor for a hot bubble bath.
ISABEL: I wanted a house that I could look forward coming from work
and having my own relaxing space,
and House of Wood definitely does that for me.
NARRATOR: And, as daylight fades, Isabel has her own way of explaining
just what her house means to her.
Welcome to Plochingen, Germany,
where coming home is a bit like entering a fairy tale.
NARRATOR: We're back on the track of the world's most extreme homes.
With its towering, whimsical buildings, playful paths,
and even its own bustling Main Street,
this fairy-tale complex looks like a German-made Disneyland.
But what it really is is an urban apartment complex --
64 units in all, with their own shops and even a café.
Everything here plays up the storybook feel.
The red streaks painted down the wall suggest the flow of rain
and give the place its name -- the Rain Tower Apartments.
The man behind this building fantasy is renowned architect
and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
Hundertwasser died in 2000.
Heinz Springmann worked with him on Rain Tower Apartments.
[ Speaking German ]
INTERPRETER: The key word in Hundertwasser architecture
is natural.
So all of his buildings echo nature --
That's to say, have green spaces, no straight lines,
have an individual character.
NARRATOR: "Individual" is an understatement.
Here in Rain Tower,
even the plants and trees grow in fairy-tale ways.
Lush greenery grows everywhere,
and almost all the apartments have access to a roof garden.
BETTINA: Hundertwasser always said
buildings took away something from nature,
and he put it back on the roof.
So we have everywhere green and flowers and the roof garden.
NARRATOR: Both outside and in, this place is different.
BETTINA: The windows, as you can see,
have all different colors and different sizes.
And Hundertwasser always said
the windows are the eyes of the houses.
So they are all different.
[ Speaking German ]
INTERPRETER: There are red windows, blue ones, black windows.
Also, their heights are all different,
and this gives the apartments individuality.
None of them is the same.
NARRATOR: Hundertwasser believed that what you see influences how you feel,
and he designed accordingly.
He made the buildings look solid,
which makes apartment dwellers feel more secure.
HEINZ: [ Speaking German ]
INTERPRETER: For example,
these pilasters that literally support the tower
aren't strictly necessary from a technical point of view
but simply lend it more stability and solidity.
NARRATOR: And the folks who call these spaces home
fairly appreciate that creative vision.
BETTINA: We like Hundertwasser architecture
because it's special, it's not normal.
And there are no straight lines, and that's what we like most.
NARRATOR: Despite what it looks like outside,
decorating the apartments inside was mostly left up to tenants.
But since most of the tenants are huge Hundertwasser groupies,
his designs flowed inside, too.
BETTINA: This is our bathroom,
and it's the first room which we did on our own,
and as you can see, they're typical Hundertwasser colors --
red, blue, yellow, and so on.
NARRATOR: And these cracked tiles -- a Hundertwasser trademark.
Our tiles, we sometimes try to destroy with a hammer,
and the first time, it didn't do,
but in the second and third time, it did work,
and so we were very excited.
As you can see here, we broke the mirror,
as we did it with the tiles, as well.
We also did a round the ceiling.
So it's a typical kind of Hundertwasser
that he doesn't want a straight wall.
So that's what we do.
NARRATOR: To be a real Hundertwasser groupie
requires a hefty dose of courage and creativity.
BETTINA: What you can here see is also a typical spiral.
And it was like doing a puzzle because we put stone by stone.
And to do the whole spiral,
we took about six months every weekend, many hours.
And it was quite exhausting but a lot of fun.
NARRATOR: But it also means calling this most unusual of spaces home.
Across the Channel in Britain,
this home is, well, not quite home yet.
NARRATOR: We've explored a huge house
inspired by an Italian hilltop village...
toured a fairy-tale fantasy in Germany...
and checked out a nature lover's hillside home in Spain.
In London England, on the River Thames,
a tugboat pulls its load...
a houseboat, making its way home after being built in a shipyard.
It's an anxious 36-hour crossing.
At any point, two years of planning and building
could literally sink.
Well, the adventure today started yesterday at about noon,
when we left Kent and got towed up the Thames
and then came down this morning on the rising tide.
Took it nice and steady.
Took us about three quarters of an hour
to go this last 200 meters.
After two years, to finally get it in place is so pleasing.
My wife and I were here in late 2008 and saw one of the houses
and thought that looked like a lot of fun.
I'm just looking forward
to moving out of my 400-square-foot apartment
into this behemoth of a house
that is just under 3,000 square foot.
So it'll be nice to be able to have some space.
NARRATOR: And in July 2013,
Mike and Mel Skjott finally got their wish
and boarded their new floating home.
When we told all our friends, most people thought we were mad,
and they did think we were going to be living
in what most people think of as a houseboat,
which is sort of small, quite romantic, but quite cramped.
But we had a very different idea in mind.
NARRATOR: A very different idea
because it's actually a 2-story, 3,000-square-foot luxury home
on the water.
Downstairs on the waterline, there are four bedrooms,
two bathrooms -- including an en suite -- and a TV room.
MICHAEL: Because we're so intimate down here,
we decided that we'd make this kind of the private space.
So down here, we relax, watch TV.
NARRATOR: Upstairs, there's a large bright kitchen
and a living room with glass doors
that open out onto a balcony.
MICHAEL: The upstairs is designed
so that it's open planned so that it's sociable living.
NARRATOR: And luxury living,
with a fine marble floor surrounding the staircase.
MICHAEL: We chose the stone
because we wanted to show the movement that the river has
with the greens and the browns and the blues.
NARRATOR: The stairs leading up to the roof terrace
are made of oak and British elm,
the bark left on to add a rustic touch.
At the top,
there's an automated sliding hatch that opens,
and there's the river Thames all around.
MICHAEL: So, looking east, we have a great view where we can see
all the way into the city of London about 5, 6 miles away.
And looking west, we have a great park over here,
which just gives us a lot of nice green foliage.
So it almost feels as if we're not in London --
no traffic noise.
NARRATOR: So, the big move onto the river seems like it was a great idea.
MEL: It's interesting living on the river
because the Thames is tidal.
So you'll actually go up and down twice a day.
When you're sitting on the mud,
I thought it was gonna be horrible,
but actually, it's lovely.
The ducks come and pad around. It's wonderful.
NARRATOR: North of San Francisco, in Sonoma County
is another waterfront house,
but this time high up on a cliff overlooking the Pacific.
It's called Sonoma Coast House,
and it was remodeled with one goal in mind --
to capture visually its breathtaking surroundings.
The original house had solid walls
both in this vertical plane and the sloping plane beyond.
We changed those
to a glass sloping wall and an open wall here,
with the braced wood frame in the form of a Union Jack.
The idea here is to be able to see
from the dining room through to the Monterey Pine beyond.
NARRATOR: The house was originally built in the 1970s,
but Obie renovated the entire structure.
Today every single room opens onto the ocean
or the surrounding forest.
The house also features some very unusual angles
and massive timbers.
The result --
Coast House feels like a giant tree house perched on the shore.
OBIE: Only one species of wood is used throughout this house,
and that is Douglas fir.
Douglas fir is a local species of wood.
It is very strong. It is very stable. It is very beautiful.
And we've used it on the floors,
the columns, the wood paneling, and the cabinets.
NARRATOR: There are five bedrooms, three bathrooms,
a spacious kitchen, and two living rooms.
The 5,000 square feet
also include plenty of spots to escape
and enjoy the magnificent surroundings.
And when Obie said every room gets a view, he meant it.
Because this was the only bedroom in the house without a full ocean view,
we made some unusual efforts to mitigate that.
We used a tube which runs through an existing storage room
in order to get a very specific view
of the white water breaking on the rocks beyond.
NARRATOR: Obie redesigned the outside, too.
He created a sheltered deck
anchored by a 1-ton floating stone table.
And so, one man's vision
turned into a house full of million-dollar views.
What's 13 feet wide and has 40 stairs?
A home in real-estate-challenged Japan, of course.
NARRATOR: We're back on the track of the world's most extreme homes.
This is Japan, where building lots are small
and architects are always challenged.
Still, they manage.
This is a 4-story house that's only 13 feet wide.
[ Speaking Japanese ]
INTERPRETER: Welcome to our house. I'll show you around.
NARRATOR: Mike Tokunaga and his wife
bought the tiny 750-square-foot lot
and then dared their poor architect
to come up with something extraordinary,
which is what he did.
The entrance is marked by a rusted front door.
In Japanese tradition, there is a place for shoes.
Up above, a clear view up all four stories.
The stairway is entirely open.
Using the railing is highly encouraged.
The bedroom is on the basement floor.
A light well lets in natural sun.
On the first floor is the bathroom.
MIKE: [ Speaking Japanese ]
INTERPRETER: This is the shower room and the bathroom.
This is our huge basin.
We love the fact that we have such an unusually huge basin
in such a small house.
Here's the atrium.
The atrium makes the whole house feel quite spacious.
I like it.
NARRATOR: Up another flight of stairs is the tiny living room --
small on ground space but big on ceiling height.
At 18 feet, it's nearly 40% higher than it's wide.
INTERPRETER: First of all, I love this high ceiling.
For such a small house, we have
this disproportionately big wall here, which is my favorite part.
NARRATOR: The house is built on a steel frame
with steel and concrete floors.
Then, to keep down the cost,
they finish the walls with sheetrock,
which made it easy to cut openings in the top of the west wall
to let the sunset shine into the house.
[ Speaking Japanese ]
INTERPRETER: When I sit down on this sofa, I can see the light
coming through that slit up there, which is lovely.
And this huge window is great, too.
NARRATOR: The window in the south wall is the wall
so the Tokunagas can see the world outside
and the world outside can see the Tokunagas, too.
[ Speaking Japanese ]
INTERPRETER: I'm not sure what our neighbors think about us
with this big window and all,
but we're trying our best to be a respectable neighbor.
NARRATOR: Because of the open central stairwell,
the window lights up the entire house.
The deep frame shades the house from the hot summer sun
but still lets the lower winter sun shine through.
The kitchen and dining area are on a mezzanine,
halfway between the second and third floors.
MIKE: [ Speaking Japanese ]
INTERPRETER: Over here is the kitchen.
As opposed to the living room, the kitchen has a low ceiling,
and that makes it quite cozy.
Both this table and the shelf there
were especially made for this house -- very simple and nice.
NARRATOR: Now more death-defying stairs up to the third floor.
MIKE: [ Speaking Japanese ]
INTERPRETER: I love the view from here.
I can really feel the height and the spaciousness
of the living room.
This is also our library space.
It's at the top floor.
So a good workout every time I come up here.
NARRATOR: The total floor area is just over 1,000 square feet.
But the creative combination of open stairs, light, and height
make it feel 10 times that big.
INTERPRETER: It makes a small house very easy to live in.
This is the tropical coast of Queensland, Australia,
home to the unique Whale House.
When the parents of architect Charles Wright
asked him to design a beach-front home for them,
they were probably expecting
something a little more traditional Aussie.
In tropical Australia,
the typical house is what we call a Queenslander.
That's basically a house which is up on stilts.
We really didn't want to do that.
I wanted to do a house that really didn't look like a house.
NARRATOR: What they got was a home with a chunky roof,
a pitched angle, wooden planks, and an unusual shape
all created to mimic... a whale?
One of the inspirations was the southern right whale.
And the way in which a whale breaches the water.
And it just gave me an idea
that could be quite an interesting form for a roof.
The color of a whale dictated,
you know, the dark charcoal grays.
NARRATOR: Inside, four bedrooms, two bathrooms,
and the huge combined kitchen and living room
sit side by side on one long floor,
reaching from the street back into the garden.
When you get to the main living spaces,
there's a real sense of arrival.
And it's really about this tropical, vibrant environment.
NARRATOR: This big main room is where the family cooks, eats, relaxes.
CHARLES: So, there's many different textures through the house.
Obviously, there's the smoothness
of the polished concrete floors.
We have the robustness of the brickwork on the walls.
And all of the joinery in the ceilings in plywood.
NARRATOR: Because his parents are getting older,
Wright wanted to cut down on the upkeep.
Houses in tropical heat and humidity can take a lot of work.
CHARLES: We wanted to design
something that was really gonna be robust and low maintenance.
Even things like the floor -- I didn't want any grout joints,
which inevitably require maintenance.
And as a result,
we've got this monolithic slab throughout the house.
So when you walk through, it's completely seamless.
NARRATOR: Glass doors fold open onto the decks...
pool...
and even two small ponds,
which grandparents and grandchildren love.
The key to keeping this house cool is the roof.
It's big, thick, and absorbs the sun's heat.
At the same time, the curved shape
provides a breeze and some shade.
CHARLES: The roof literally folds down and hangs
over the private areas like the bedrooms and bathrooms
and then lifts up over the living areas.
NARRATOR: The roof acts to move air through the house,
a must when the humidity reaches 100%.
CHARLES: We did a lot of work in designing
these incredibly complex ceilings
and integrating what we call thermal chimneys,
which draw air from the lower parts of the house
and vent them through these vents.
So the ceilings also had a practical application,
as well as an aesthetic one.
NARRATOR: A house with a big roof keeping out the sun and the elements
might be a little dark inside.
Wright spent almost as long designing the lighting
as he did the ventilation.
CHARLES: I wanted all the lighting to be indirect.
So I wanted to sort of create a mood or an atmosphere.
During the day, I wanted it to be sunny and airy.
And as the night came in,
I wanted it to become more intimate.
NARRATOR: With its cool temperatures and warm atmosphere,
Wright has designed
the perfect tropical beach house for his parents --
a true gift for their golden years.
In Montreal, Canada,
this modern family home seems to have it all.
But there's one modern convenience
this home doesn't have.
We removed all electromagnetic fields.
NARRATOR: We've checked out a huge pastel extravaganza in Florida...
a fairy-tale land in Germany...
and even an Australian home inspired by a breaching whale.
Now we're in Montreal, Canada, where this cement-and-steel home
is a clear standout from its neighbors.
Inside, it's an equally chic modern home,
with plenty of space to raise a family
and a very unusual courtyard to gather and play.
Despite its modern personality, what this house doesn't have
is a single cellphone or Wi-Fi connection.
We figured that there is a direct correlation
between your well-being and your habitat.
So we removed all electromagnetic fields.
NARRATOR: Removing electromagnetic fields
meant not only no cellphones or Wi-Fi,
but also constructing the home
to remove natural background radiation.
SABINE: We used black carbon-fiber paint.
We have curtains. We have concrete.
We have materials to block the electromagnetic waves.
NARRATOR: So they got rid of the invisible waves
and encouraged the visible rays of the sun
in the courtyard in the middle of the house.
SABINE: We have six months of winter here,
and daylight is extremely important to us.
The interesting thing about this is that,
when you're in the living room, your eye goes through this space
and then to the kitchen and then to the back terrace.
So it makes the house feel extremely big,
but the house is only 23 feet wide.
NARRATOR: The internal walls are made
from an eco plaster of lime-coated hemp.
This is our fabulous hemp wall.
And it created a bit of a debate
because first of all, my husband said,
"Honey, we're gonna do a hemp-and-lime house."
I said, "Are you crazy? I don't want my house to look like a hippie house.
I want something contemporary."
And I'm actually really happy with the result.
I think it looks great.
It's a very sensual wall.
You can't walk in here without touching it.
NARRATOR: But there's more to them than just good looks.
SABINE: So, hemp-and-lime walls --
They have a hydroscopic property to them.
So they absorb humidity when need be,
and then they release it when you also need it.
So it adds to the comfort level of the house.
NARRATOR: And the hemp does a great job upstairs, too.
We have two boys, and they each have their bedroom.
And the hemp walls in the bedrooms
create a very strong soundproofing quality
that makes this house very comfortable to the ear
as well as to the eye.
I was a big insomniac before moving in here,
and ever since then, I sleep like a baby.
And so does my baby. [ Chuckles ]
NARRATOR: The parental bedroom is down a hallway and under an arch.
SABINE: The master bedroom is an open-concept bedroom.
We also have a glass partition
separating the shower from the bedroom done by a local artist
with different colors to have a little punch.
The furniture is locally made, sustainable fabrics.
Everything was thought of.
The company that does these floors
basically takes all the rejected beams of wood from the industry
because they either have nails or they're too big,
and they usually get dumped into the landfill.
NARRATOR: So they reduced the carbon footprint of the house,
but to Sabine, it was just as important
to get the feel of the house right.
Mmm!
SABINE: You'll notice that the proportions feel comfortable.
The height, the depth, the width --
It's something soothing and appeasing to the eye.
They go, "Wow! Your ceiling is beautiful."
They say, "Do you really need all these beams
to support the house?"
And obviously not.
But to have the same distance between the beams
as the width of the beams themselves
was very important to us.
And that's what makes the beauty of it.
NARRATOR: Eco-friendly, perfect proportions,
and designer good looks,
the Ecologia House proves the loss of technology
just may bring around a gain in lifestyle.
Amsterdam, Holland,
is a city full of proud and beautiful buildings,
but one house seems to shy away from its neighbors.
In fact, it appears to be hiding behind a fine white veil.
NARRATOR: We're back
on our tour of the world's most extreme homes.
In Amsterdam, Holland, row houses are not unusual.
But in the heart of this district,
surrounded by its more traditional neighbors,
stands the White Veil House, a home that got its name
because it appears to be
entirely covered in delicate white lace.
From inside looking out,
it's like peering through a bridal veil --
a beautiful and stylish nod to the neighborhood's past.
ANGIE: We're in the middle of Amsterdam,
and this is one of the really oldest parts of the city --
13th century.
And this area used to be the heart of the textile industry.
NARRATOR: The house was condemned a few years ago,
but a family of artists who live there now
persuaded the authorities to let them restore it.
And basically, they created a brand-new house.
The veil was inspired by the tenants.
We went to visit their old house,
and they only had one window,
and it was covered with beautifully colored sheets.
They wanted to create their own artistic world.
NARRATOR: So Angie designed a unique and private space
where they could live and work.
We designed the veil together with an artist, Chris Kabel,
who invented this way of folding hexagons one way or the other
to catch the light or to create shadow.
And basically, he's made a drawing with light.
NARRATOR: The entire outside wall is covered
in 48,000 thin aluminum hexagons --
each one hand-twisted
to create different patterns on the surface.
The whole effect is like a broad length of fine lace.
ANGIE: It also works as a privacy screen.
You can fold them away, or you can open the house up.
NARRATOR: Art on the outside and even more art on the inside.
ANGIE: What makes it very special for us as architects
is that we knew in advance who was going to be living here.
The tenants are a very artistic family.
The father is a well-known Dutch cartoonist,
and he had this fabulous house filled with color and art
and quirky little collections.
And we wanted to create a white treasure chest
in which his world could be re-created.
NARRATOR: Dad René Windig's studio is on the ground floor.
Upstairs, there are three bedrooms
and a bright open kitchen and living room.
Throughout the entire space,
the sun throws lacy patterns on ceilings, walls, and floors.
The white metallic veil
goes all the way up to the large terrace on the roof.
ANGIE: So, the veil is folded over the house,
and it surrounds this wonderful roof terrace.
Peaceful paradise in the middle of the city.
It's fabulous.
NARRATOR: And at night, the house changes
as the white lace turns to gold and it becomes a treasure.
In Leiria, Portugal,
in a traditional Portuguese neighborhood,
this massive cement building
has all the marks of a military bunker --
...multiple levels,
no windows to the streets,
secret rooftop access,
and closed entirely by a security fence.
The house belongs to the very private Candido Ferreira.
It's called the Hidden Gem, and there's a good reason why,
but it takes a while to get there.
Inside, it's a surprisingly traditional home.
The upper level houses the more public spaces --
an entrance hall, a living room,
a kitchen with a dining space.
There are also private bedrooms and bathrooms.
But on the lower level, partly sunk into the ground,
is the answer to the riddle.
The hidden gem is this chestnut-lined library,
built specifically to house and hide
a very valuable collection of books, antiques, and art.
Right now, few of those valuables are on display.
They're hidden away somewhere.
It's all part of this mysterious homeowner's master plan
for his house.
In 2006, Ferreira bought three lots
on the edge of a hill overlooking the city of Leiria.
There, he built a massive steel-reinforced structure
totaling 11,000 square feet.
Unwilling to affect his neighbors by building higher,
he dug deep into the ground, adding space 15 feet down.
The result -- a cement-and-steel fortress,
closed to the world but open to the light.
Built around an open courtyard,
two-story glass walls allow sun to flood into the house.
Ferreira likes his privacy, but he also likes a view.
So the floor-to-ceiling windows
look out over the hillside or onto inner courtyards.
Broad electric blinds
can shade the rooms from the hot Portuguese sun.
The lines and surfaces within the house are clean.
They're designed to highlight
the antiques and the works of art
that are scattered throughout the house.
The floor and stairs are poured white resin,
the walls covered in solid birch.
Each of the 12-foot-high doors
is made out of either birch or glass.
But it's in the home's hidden gem
where Ferreira spends most of his time.
Here, he studies, plans, and catalogs
his collection of rare objects,
which is the key to his future plan.
If the Hidden Gem looks
more like a public museum than a private home,
there's a reason for that, too.
On the occasion of his death, the whole compound will become
a cultural center and open to the public.
But not yet.
For now, Ferreira plans to enjoy his personal collection
and his rooftop views.
In the California high desert,
there is a stretch of remote land so unforgiving
that few people even know that it's there.
But one homeowner set out to prove
that paradise is where you build it.
NARRATOR: Welcome back to "Extreme Homes."
The high desert of California --
an incredibly remote and difficult location,
4,000 feet up in the wild rock-reach area.
But for one city stockbroker,
this harsh landscape was just what he wanted
to escape from the cutthroat city rush.
So he decided to build a luxurious home here.
It was David McAdam's job to get it done.
DAVID: The challenges for building this house were numerous.
For one thing, it's remote.
So, it's down a long, windy road.
But additionally, there's no infrastructure here.
We had to create all of the infrastructure.
We had to dig a well for water.
We had to dig a septic tank for sewage.
We had to bring in power from a good distance away.
NARRATOR: The owner bought a 10-acre lot, so there was plenty of room.
The question was, where to put the house?
The owner walked every inch of this property,
looking for the spot where he wanted to put the house.
And he picked probably the most challenging part of the property
for us to build on.
We are straddling over a seasonal stream.
So we had to engineer the house to sit lightly in that location.
But that's fine. That's what we do.
NARRATOR: McAdam's company specializes
in building houses on lightweight steel frames,
which means more flexibility in siting the house.
DAVID: First, we put in 10 concrete footings in the soil,
each at a different height.
Then we came in with prefabricated steel columns,
which were bolted to those footings.
And after that, light-gauge steel was bolted to that
to create a rough framing of the house.
That was accomplished in three days.
All of those materials came out
prefabricated, pre-drilled, precut to shape.
Once that frame was up,
we finished the house entirely in 10 weeks.
NARRATOR: McAdam also built
a separate garage and utilities area over the hill.
The owner really didn't want to see his infrastructure.
He wanted to just feel
like he was sitting out in the middle of the wilderness.
So those annoying things like water and electricity,
carport, and solar panels
are out of sight but very much in a supporting role.
NARRATOR: Once the exterior was completed,
the owner began to furnish the house.
It's a wild location, but he's not roughing it out here.
DAVID: The house is a two-bedroom, a one-bath house
in about 1,100 square feet of space.
So it's relatively small, but it's luxuriously appointed.
So there's this great contrast
between the rugged outside and this very comforting interior.
NARRATOR: Palm Springs is just a half-hour away.
So maybe it's no surprise the house looks a little
like something out of the 1950s or '60s.
DAVID: What I really love about the interior --
The owner wanted to bring
a little of the flair, if you will, of Palm Springs,
which is, of course, famous for its mid-century modern style.
And the furnishings in this house
really tip their hat to that period.
NARRATOR: For McAdam, this house is proof
that when you make up your mind, you can do anything.
My very favorite feature of this house really is the location.
You just can't believe
that you're in this amazing landscape
but you are surrounded by luxury.
NARRATOR: We've raced around the world, been inside extreme homes,
and seen what dreams are made of.
We've looked at fairy-tale apartments in Germany,
a sprawling pastel pad in Florida,
and an awesome Californian cliff house --
dream spaces that have become reality
for the creators of these extreme homes.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.