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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.
This home was built on the edge of Death Valley,
while this house has been designed around a piano.
We explore a 350-year-old Moroccan riad
and a spectacular glass house in Japan.
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.
The city of Las Vegas is renowned
for its glitz and flashy night life.
But in one corner, it's a bit more genteel.
I love English gardens, the gardens in France and Italy.
And so it was trying to recreate that look and feel
based on products that were indigenous
to living in Las Vegas.
NARRATOR: Homeowner Lori Venners' desire
to bring some old-world charm to Las Vegas
wasn't limited to just her garden.
Everywhere you look, you see the style and feel
of Renaissance Europe.
I wanted to build a new house
that lived and felt -- looked old.
So I started with reclaimed cobblestone from western Europe.
The roof was from Spain.
It's new product made to look old.
This is the interior courtyard that I use for entertaining.
NARRATOR: This antique fountain from France is the real thing,
but if Lori couldn't find originals,
she simply replicated items, like the front door,
which is a copy from the oldest church in Venice, Italy.
As we enter the foyer, I worked with an artist from Arkansas
who -- it took 14 days
to hand-paint the mosaic on the walls here.
NARRATOR: Any piece that had to be made for the house
was deliberately aged,
like the wood around the alcove,
which was beaten with a chain to make it more worn.
The main living room is packed with European antiques,
and Lori has done her best to match the style of the period.
With this room, I used
hand-scraped ash flooring from Austria,
and the fireplace surround is from Cyprus.
The dome here was an inspiration out of an old Andalusian book.
NARRATOR: Even washing your hands
is an almost historical experience.
The sink here is reclaimed from Italy.
It's all hand-inlayed mosaic tile.
And this is an inspiration that we found in Spain
that we were going to use on the beams,
but because we liked it so much,
we decided to paint the entire room.
NARRATOR: Go into the dining room,
and you enter a grotto
with walls of cantera volcanic stone
for that old Roman feel.
Like most homes, the kitchen is the hub of the house
and shows off some of Lori's favorite finds.
From the brick cove ceiling to the pounded-copper sinks
to the terra-cotta floor tiles,
everything has been either designed for the house
or brought from across the Atlantic.
Even the kitchen cabinets
have 300-year-old hand-carved wood edging
imported from Bavaria.
But the centerpiece is this walnut work top.
The island countertop is from Denmark
and was viewed as a piece of art.
It took 16 men to carry it in once it arrived
and placed here on the counter.
So we take great care with this piece.
NARRATOR: While downstairs is for entertaining,
the entire upstairs is a master-bedroom suite
fit for a king and queen.
On either side of the royal bed are two hand-carved columns,
and above, a wooden chandelier --
again, hand-carved, obviously.
The old-world feel continues into the his-and-hers bathrooms,
where free-standing copper tubs and antique-style shower heads
are the rule.
Next to the bedroom, there's an elaborate private sitting area.
VENNERS: The ceiling is hand-carved out of seike wood.
It's seven years aged.
The fireplace is also hand-carved
and is touched up with gold and patinaed with gold leaf.
NARRATOR: The Via Verona house took four years,
five trips around the world,
and millions of dollars to build.
But the best thing about it is
you can go to Old Europe without ever leaving Las Vegas.
In Tokyo, Japan, building space is always tight.
So when the owners of this house
bought their 592-square-foot plot,
they asked architect Sou Fujimoto
for something that wouldn't actually feel small,
even though it was.
So he designed a matrix of tiny rooms and exterior terraces
and wrapped it almost completely in 64 panels of glass.
It's called House N.A., after its owner.
The glass is supported by a steel frame
set in a three-foot-deep foundation.
The posts, along with the flooring,
are kept deliberately thin by careful use of cross-bracing.
From the outside,
this home appears to float in midair, almost.
On the street, there's a covered carport and entrance.
Go inside, and you've entered the kitchen.
Move up from the kitchen into the dining room,
which flows into the largest area -- a living space.
This space continues upward in a series of small platforms,
which double as seating or work surfaces.
There are 21 of these individual floor platforms
throughout the house,
ranging in size from 21 to 81 square feet.
They're connected by steps and ladders,
some fixed, some moveable.
If the owners get tired of one configuration,
they can change it to another.
To maintain the simple, minimalist style,
key steel supports and electrical cabling
are stowed away in the floor,
behind the bookshelf, or even inside false pillars.
Toward the top of the home is the bedroom
and a bathroom with glass walls,
so the only privacy is courtesy
of some strategically placed curtains and plants.
The use of white throughout
makes the entire house feel larger
by blending together the individual areas.
Some windows can be opened.
And to minimize the heat of the sun,
the inside of all the windows
has been covered with a thermal-filter film.
To cut down the hassle of washing all this glass,
the exteriors have been coated with titanium-dioxide paint,
which reacts with ultraviolet light
to make any dirt easily washed off by rainfall.
The House N.A. is a carefully balanced structure
of steel, wood, and glass,
which uses every available square inch.
Structurally very strong, it looks as light as a feather.
As long as you don't mind
your neighbors watching your every move,
this home reveals the perfect use of a tiny space.
Now we're heading to South Africa
to explore these 250-year-old giant beehive shapes.
NARRATOR: We're back on our tour
of the world's most extreme homes.
The Corbelled House lies in the arid heart of the Karoo,
South Africa's largest desert.
It's almost 40 miles from the nearest town.
The first structures on this site were
the two beehive-shaped domes.
The rectangular buildings were added later.
Corbelling means stacking rows of stones on top of each other
and sloping them in until they meet at the top
to form a simple vault.
Basic stone dwellings like this
have been built since ancient times.
But these two were built just 250 years ago
by Dutch pioneers called the trekboers.
Since the boers had
no other building or roofing materials available,
they used what was all around them in abundance --
ijzer-kopjes, or ironstone.
Homeowner Charmaine Botha feels they were built like this
to protect the settlers from extreme desert temperatures,
often over 104 degrees in the summer
and below freezing in the winter.
They say the beehive shape to keep the heat inside in winter,
and in summer, it's nice and cool inside.
And the stones on the outside
they used as steps to build the next level,
and on top of each corbelled house
is a big flat stone,
so they made a fire in the middle of the house
on the inside, and moved the stone away,
and after that, close it again to keep it nice and hot.
NARRATOR: To strengthen the walls,
each layer of stone
was filled with mud and straw, then painted white.
The top of the dome is almost 23 feet high,
and the flat capstone covering the old chimney hole
is still visible.
The lintels of the doorways are bowed
from the sheer weight they're supporting.
Despite their age,
the windows still retain their original handmade glass.
These well-built old houses sat empty for 50 years.
When Charmaine restored them, she was adamant that the story
of the place and its people was not forgotten.
BOTHA: I've tried to keep the history in the house
to use the stuff on the walls.
The people way back then -- They used it on the lands.
NARRATOR: And in her desire to maintain the heritage,
Charmaine has gone one step further,
or back, depending on your view.
BOTHA: There's no electricity.
All you have is lots of candles,
a gas lamp, and you can make a fire.
And that's it.
NARRATOR: The water is pumped from a natural spring.
Cooking is done on either a wood-burning stove inside
or on the outside fireplace,
which is protected from the wind with dried branches.
The Corbelled House is a living museum,
a window to a life and time long past.
The toilet is an old-fashioned outhouse lit by the sun,
or a candle, as needed.
But those pioneers never had a shower like this.
This is what we use as an outside shower.
The stone structure was here. We've just installed the shower.
It's out in the open, but the nearest people are miles away,
so you have your privacy.
NARRATOR: Living in the old Corbelled House
with few amenities may not offer luxury,
but the thick walls still keep out the cold of a desert night.
And the experience of living here is unique in the world.
In the middle of New York City,
6'2" Michael Pozner lives
in this tiny 14'x36' apartment.
It's also his office.
I spend a lot of time in my apartment.
I work here.
Unless I'm out at night
or running to meetings or errands, I'm here.
NARRATOR: The big problem with Michael's little apartment
was the lack of storage space,
so he'd have to be neat and organized,
which Michael was not.
People would say it looked like a college dorm, you know,
and I just wanted to, you know,
step up the sort of style of my apartment.
NARRATOR: So Michael challenged an architect
to create as much storage as possible
without losing living space.
Out went a bunch of tables, boxes, and shelves,
and in came dozens of invisible cabinets.
POZNER: So, this is the desk area that they built for me
because, you know, I work at home.
And we designed it in a way that would make sure
that everything could be hidden away.
So we have, like, a printer back here,
which, you know, swings out.
And then I had a lot of papers out all the time.
So we kind of created multiple table tops.
So this is a second table top,
and then this is a third table top,
and it, you know, goes all the way back.
Above the desk and around the flat-screen TV
are 12 individual cupboards.
Like the desk and cabinets,
they're made from wood with a white lacquer finish.
The apartment may be small,
but the architect clearly separated
the public and private areas.
The office has clean, crisp lines,
and the private space has been warmed up with oak.
And hidden under all that wood is a complex storage system.
Michael used to reach the sleeping loft by an open ladder.
Now there's a solid-oak stairway
which is full of handy drawers.
The bed stands 6 1/2 feet off the floor,
which creates plenty of room underneath it.
POZNER: Underneath the sleeping loft, we built a walk-in closet.
And to get a walk-in closet is, you know, unbelievable
for this size apartment in New York.
We actually have a lot of storage upstairs, as well.
We cut into these walls and made these giant cabinets here,
where I keep all kinds of gear, like all my snowboard gear.
I mean, these cabinets are so big,
I can actually hide in them, and I'm 6'2" tall.
NARRATOR: Next to the big closet is the kitchen.
It's only 6'x8'
but still manages to squeeze in
the amenities of a much larger apartment.
Kitchen used to be closed off.
It just had a small doorway here.
And we took out that whole doorway,
and then it was able to raise the ceiling all the way up,
and then just cut everything out and open.
We picked up so much counter space.
We actually have a washer and a dryer now.
So a dryer, you know,
and like a little table for folding things on.
It's a very, you know, unique luxury
for a small New York apartment like this
to have a washer and dryer.
I know my neighbors are very jealous.
NARRATOR: They might be very jealous
of the black marble work top
and natural slate floor, too.
Even the bathroom takes full advantage of its limited space.
Again, they've raised the ceiling
and built even more storage cabinets.
Michael replaced the tub with a shower
and added a nice touch of his own.
I thought it would be nice
to somehow have that bathtub experience,
so we created this bench in here,
where I can sit down and have the water soaking on me.
NARRATOR: The entire apartment may only be 500 square feet,
but this tiny New York home feels super-sized.
POZNER: We've created a lot of storage space.
Friends call me up, and they say, "Hi, how's your storage?"
NARRATOR: We're off from New York City
to Puebla, Mexico,
where music inspired our next house.
NARRATOR: We've seen a house built out of glass,
a Las Vegas home inspired by the European Renaissance,
and a 250-year-old farmhouse in South Africa.
This is the city of Puebla, Mexico,
and the designer home
of international pianist Radek Materka.
Hello. Welcome to my house -- the famous Casa Materka.
Please come in.
It's a big door.
NARRATOR: The tall, massive wooden door
opens through a 23-foot-high local-sandstone wall
that surrounds and supports the house.
MATERKA: There are no windows, and there's a reason for that.
I travel quite a bit. I play many concerts.
And so when I come home, I really want to isolate myself
a little bit, you know, from the outside world.
And this house allows me to do it.
NARRATOR: So Casa Materka was designed like a modern castle,
with high walls surrounding the house proper.
Inside, there are two main living areas.
On one side is a large kitchen
with a guest room and bathroom upstairs.
From there, it's over a bridge to the master bedroom.
And underneath the master is the piano room.
The high stone walls mean most of the natural light
comes in from above through skylights.
And despite Radek's desire for privacy from the outside world,
everything inside is on display.
MATERKA: So one of the ideas,
when we decided to construct this house,
was to open up the space.
Instead of brick, we have these big areas of glass.
NARRATOR: And the bathroom is just as exposed.
There is a curtain, if you need one.
The interior design is deliberately industrial,
with concrete, brick, recycled wood, and exposed pipe work.
Up some steps is the bridge,
which also serves as a walk-in closet.
And on the other end is the master bedroom.
MATERKA: A really open space, wonderful.
What I really love is this elongated window,
the balcony, a little terrace here.
[ Piano playing ]
NARRATOR: The master bedroom appears to float in the air,
but directly beneath the master
lies the focal point of Casa Materka.
When we had the first meeting with the architect, you know,
the first question he asked was --
he asked, you know, "What do you want?"
[ Laughs ]
And I said, "Well, I'm a pianist.
I need a place to practice."
And he designed the whole house around this instrument.
NARRATOR: The perfect practice room demands two things --
great acoustics
and the ability to play your music
without upsetting the neighbors.
CANO: [ Speaking Spanish ]
INTERPRETER: We chose to put in
stone columns with a porous surface,
which helps with soundproofing,
and also a tizante volcanic rock floor,
which is also very porous.
The vaulted ceiling is made with curved bricks,
which we deliberately left exposed
to help absorb the sound.
NARRATOR: The pine floor is set
three centimeters above the concrete slab.
This acts as an amplifier
and gives the piano a full-bodied tone.
The wraparound glass windows are a third of an inch thick
to let in light and keep the room soundproof.
If it gets too hot, they open up.
[ Speaking Spanish ]
INTERPRETER: The piano area is only 264 square feet,
but it feels bigger because it's open and free of columns.
The space also allows people to stand outside and listen
when he's giving a class or recital.
NARRATOR: Master pianist Materka
spends much of his time performing in public,
but here behind the high walls of Casa Materka,
Radek, the private person, finds his inner sanctum.
Now we're checking out
an extreme home in an extreme location --
Death Valley, Nevada.
NARRATOR: We're back, checking out
some of the most extreme homes in the world.
When a client bought a 40-acre lot
on the edge of Death Valley,
the first thing architect Peter Strzebniok did
was make sure he wasn't joking.
Then he dug out his camping equipment.
STRZEBNIOK: So, we spent several days out here
just trying to understand the site,
trying to understand how the sun actually moves,
how the wind behaves, where the best views are,
because it's such a beautiful environment
that we really wanted to incorporate everything
into our building.
We wanted to elevate the building over the desert plain.
And there are two reasons for that.
One of the reasons is because it's a flash-flood zone here,
so it can flood in the wintertime.
But the main reason, really, is to elevate the entire building,
make it appear to hover over the landscape.
NARRATOR: So they poured a tall slab
and covered it with 900 square feet of cedar decking,
stained gray to match the concrete.
And there's a hot tub,
which serves as a cooling tub in the summer.
The exterior siding is also cedar,
but in this case, treated with Australian timber oil.
The oil shields against the blast of the sun
and complements
the reddish-brown tones of the desert.
But the hardest thing about building this house
was getting started.
STRZEBNIOK: Given the remoteness of the site,
we needed to bring all the utilities to the site.
We needed to scrape a path to actually access the site.
We also needed to bring out power lines.
We needed to dig a well because there's no water.
NARRATOR: The house is only 1,200 square feet,
but the entire front facade
seems to include the vast desert landscape,
which makes it feel much bigger.
So, this is the main entry,
and what I wanted to achieve here is to have,
as you can see, a wide opening
to really open up the entire width
to connect the inside with the outside.
NARRATOR: To keep the focus on the landscape,
the inside was kept deliberately simple,
with an open-plan kitchen, dining, and living room.
Outside, a sail-cloth canopy shades the south deck.
Inside, high ceilings and windows help reduce the heat.
Under the bamboo flooring,
there's a radiant cooling or warming system as needed.
The homeowner bought the lot and commissioned the house
because he loves the desert landscape.
So Peter wisely kept that in mind.
STRZEBNIOK: This particular window is a very special window
because if you sit at the table, you have this amazing view
of this mountain in the background,
which is just stunning.
NARRATOR: The study, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms,
are all on the north side of the house.
They get the view without the full force of the sun.
When Peter first checked out the site,
he saw the night sky was filled with stars.
So he added a little extra detail in the design.
STRZEBNIOK: So, here we're coming into the master bedroom,
and as you can see, one of the main design considerations
was a big window
that the owner can look out of when lying in bed.
And another design consideration
is, like, the skylight right above the heads of the owner
when they lie in bed,
which is stunning to see the stars at night.
NARRATOR: And with so many stars all around,
the owner says it's like sleeping in a spaceship.
Now we're off to Thailand to explore
a traditional Thai house with a 21st-century evolution.
NARRATOR: We're on a tour of the world's most extreme homes.
The mountains of Khao Yai National Park
lie 100 miles northeast of Bangkok, Thailand.
Here, architect Chuta Sinthuphan has built
a 21st-century version of a traditional Thai home.
To design a house for Thai people
is very different than designing a house for Westerners.
Instead of keeping the heat in, we want to keep the heat out.
NARRATOR: Yet despite 90-degree temperatures and 80% humidity,
there's no air-conditioning.
Instead, Chuta decided to channel the mountain breezes
and design for the way
Thai people have kept cool for centuries.
Traditional Thai house, you see that people live
in each different sections of house
depending on the time of the day.
NARRATOR: Traditional Thai houses are built on stilts,
so the space under the house is shaded from the sun,
perfect during the heat of the day,
but Chuta wanted to make a modern improvement.
SINTHUPHAN: As you can see,
the house actually has a raised floor,
but instead of having it open, now it's enclosed with glass.
So you can still get that sense of openness,
except that you can close for security.
NARRATOR: Chuta has kept the Thai tradition
of merging the kitchen, dining, and living areas
into one large, open space.
And if it gets too hot,
the glass walls can be opened on all four sides.
SINTHUPHAN: This house being so open, this allows the wind
to flow through the home all day long.
NARRATOR: On the second floor, there are three bedrooms.
Heat rises, so here Chuta had to think outside the box.
SINTHUPHAN: One of the things
that actually is different for Thais also
is that even though they like to live in a big family,
they have a lot of sense of privacy.
They want all their bedroom doors to be shut all the time.
So there's a lot of trick, you know, in designing the windows
and opening into this house
to let them have their own privacy
and at their same time, keeping them cool.
NARRATOR: So the main staircase
that climbs from the bottom to the top floor
acts like a giant chimney.
As hot air rises up the stairwell,
it's expelled through openings at the top.
The rising heat lowers the internal air pressure.
That pulls fresh air in through open doors and windows,
creating a continual cool breeze.
Chuta has even designed the staircase
to work with the system.
Every detail is thought out.
So, the stairs actually has two different finishes.
At the lower level,
since they actually connect to the two living areas,
it has wooden steps so that you can walk barefoot.
But then between the second and third floor,
then the stairs become perforated metal
to allow the maximum air to actually get passed through.
NARRATOR: Chuta wanted effective, natural ventilation,
but he also wanted to prevent the buildup of heat
in the first place.
So the walls on the upper floors
are a whopping two feet thick.
It's actually made out of three layers of material
with a really big air mass in the middle.
The three layers are made of a brick wall,
an air mass, another layer of brick wall,
and actually plaster-coated cement board.
And the air mass itself acts as insulation,
so it keeps the heat from getting into the house itself.
NARRATOR: The thick walls around the windows
also provide shade from the hot Thai sun.
The exterior pattern of earth-colored plaster
is a nod to the color of a conventional wooden Thai house.
Chuta has retained
many of the traditional elements of a Thai home,
but there's one area he couldn't resist changing completely.
SINTHUPHAN: In Thai houses,
the courtyards are usually attached to the ground,
but being here in Khao Yai,
we want to see the eastern view as much as possible.
And thus the courtyard became the roof garden.
This really allows the owner to have access
of this 270-degree view of the mountains surrounding them.
NARRATOR: In New Zealand,
the tradition of bach building is all of 50 years old.
"Bach" is short for bachelor pad.
They're generally small vacation getaways
built entirely out of recycled materials.
Most are on the coast.
But Jona Williams decided to build his
up in the trees on his parents' sheep farm.
WILLIAMS: Well, I really liked the view,
and the trees just seemed sort of perfect for the job.
Narrator: Once he found the perfect spot in the trees,
Jona got right to work.
I've used a triangle structure
to make the trees very rigid
so that the hut won't actually sway in the wind.
NARRATOR: Traditional Kiwi bach housing
is made from scrap materials.
But when your house is 26 feet up in the trees,
it needs to be secure,
so Jona went to the lumberyard
and bought some strong support beams.
Once the main floor was in,
everything else was recycled goods.
The frame work, plaster board, insulation,
corrugated iron walls, roof, guttering,
railings, and even the windows
were either donated, discards from building sites,
or freebies from the junkyard.
It's all pretty basic, but that's the point.
Just making such a cool thing
out of a whole lot of rubbish --
I think people like that.
The tree hut took about a year to complete.
And we did that all at night
because all of my mates had full-time jobs.
So we obviously couldn't work during the day.
We'd come out, we'd bring a box of beer
and just drink the beer, and then go from there.
NARRATOR: Each bach is a one of a kind,
depending on materials, location,
and whatever you desire.
WILLIAMS: I got a bath hanging out the side,
so you wouldn't want that to be in an urban area.
People can see you taking a bath.
NARRATOR: Looks can be deceiving.
This funky bath is supplied
by rain water heated in a homemade steel tank.
So it's all more high-tech than you might think.
It's actually jam-packed full of features.
We got a heating system
that doubles as water heating for the bath,
as well as a radiant heater for inside,
solar to power the lighting,
a computer, sound system.
I've had numerous mates
that just come up and stay in it just whenever they like.
And it's really cool.
NARRATOR: But it's the entrance that stands out.
I kind of just wanted to make something
that no one would expect,
so I made a motorized drawbridge,
and fully featured with a key pad.
So you walk up to your tree and enter your code,
and this platform comes out for you to go in.
NARRATOR: Even secondhand,
the key pad, remote, and mechanism were pretty expensive.
But as soon as the seller heard what Jona was doing,
he donated them in the best tradition
of New Zealand bach building.
Some dynamite, the British monarchy, and religion --
all connected to one single dwelling?
We're heading to the U.K. to visit that incredible home.
NARRATOR: We're back
with some of the most extreme homes in the world.
In the U.K., there's a seaside residence
that only exists thanks to bishops, TNT,
and Her Majesty, the Queen.
It's a home on the island of Anglesey, off the Welsh coast,
and has taken more than two centuries to complete.
The original building on this site
was built in 1812 near the Bishop of Anglesey's palace
and was simply an elaborate changing room by the sea.
And though 200 years ago, this small building
was simply where the bishop changed before a swim,
Tim Greenwood immediately saw the potential in its location.
I fell in love with the property because of the views.
It was a unique property.
And the sea comes right up to your front door.
The vistas are fantastic whichever way you look.
NARRATOR: On a good day, the views stretch for miles,
and the Bangor Pier, the Menai Suspension Bridge,
and even Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales,
are all visible.
This particular part of Wales is an AONB,
which is an area of outstanding national beauty.
And any planning permissions that are given
have got to be given with that in mind.
NARRATOR: So getting planning permission
for a new extension certainly wasn't easy.
Not only did Tim have to get the okay from the local authority,
but from Her Majesty, the Queen, herself.
GREENWOOD: The property's built on five pillars.
The pillars arise out of the sea bed,
which is part of the Crown Estates.
So on the title deeds, we have a contract
with Her Majesty, the Queen,
and she's given us permission to build on her land,
and we're very grateful to her.
Thank you, Your Majesty.
NARRATOR: Getting planning permission from the Queen
was certainly hard work,
but removing the rock face to make space for the extension
was even harder.
GREENWOOD: In terms of building this property,
we had to crack away at a lot of rock.
We eventually went to dynamite to blow the rock away,
which was quite a challenge and a risk.
NARRATOR: Using the dynamite worked.
And once the rock was cleared away,
construction could finally begin.
Designed to take full advantage of its location,
the four-bedroom house
has numerous floor-to-ceiling windows
looking out over the water.
Whether you're in the living room, kitchen,
or in the rooftop sun room,
you're guaranteed great views
of the surrounding sea and countryside.
We went to this home by climbing a stone staircase
to a roof patio
made of fiberglass and powder-coated aluminum.
On the roof is the sun room.
A staircase from here leads
down to the black-and-white kitchen with breakfast bar,
and dining and living rooms with beautiful oak flooring.
Down a hallway, there are two bedrooms,
which are situated in the old bishop's changing room.
The en suite bathrooms at the back
are built into the rock face.
Then further along in the modern extension,
ash-wood doors open to two waterside bedrooms
and a bathroom coated with marfil tiles.
Outside, these 200-year-old steps
would have once been used by the bishops
to get down to the water's edge.
Nowadays, though, it's a handy spot
to moor your 21st-century speed boat.
Up on the decking, there's another modern luxury
in which the bishops probably didn't have -- a hot tub.
Tim and his partner might be able to relax now,
but even compared to gaining a royal permit
and the dangers of dynamite,
the hot tub's installation was stressful.
GREENWOOD: The hot tub's about a third of a ton.
So if the strapping came loose and landed on the house,
it would have gone straight through,
and probably we'd have had to start all over again.
NARRATOR: But the strapping held,
and the hot tub was safely lowered to the ground,
a fantastic finishing touch to a house
that successfully combines the old with the new.
If you've ever wanted a four-bedroom family home
with a fantastic ocean view for just $120,000,
then you should head down to Chile,
because, just 70 miles west of Santiago,
in the coastal town of Santo Domingo,
architect Alejandro Soffia has managed to build just that
for his client in only two months.
[ Speaking Spanish ]
INTERPRETER: The purpose of this house
is just to find the use
of a building component called SIP.
Its main benefit is the good insulation.
NARRATOR: SIP stands for structural insulated panels.
They've been used in American industrial buildings
since the 1930s.
Now they're a popular material for inexpensive homes.
Each panel is made of a rigid polymer foam
sandwiched between two waterproofed wooden boards.
They're light, strong, and don't require scaffolding to put up.
Alejandro's design used standard sizes --
16'x4' for the floors and 8'x4' for the walls --
and saved a small fortune.
INTERPRETER: With this system,
where the dimensions of the panels are prepared ahead,
there are no delays, so it's a quick build.
NARRATOR: The first thing Alejandro did
was pour a concrete base
and carefully lay out the floor plan.
INTERPRETER: The house's design means
that the panels that face north protect it from the sun,
which is very strong in summer.
The panels that face east provide privacy from neighbors,
and all the walls that are turned towards the west
have the best possible view of the sea.
NARRATOR: Once the panels were fitted together,
Alejandro covered some of the walls in treated Chilean pine.
INTERPRETER: We decided, for aesthetic reasons,
that the panels should have wooden cladding
on the north-facing side,
on the street, which is where the neighbors pass,
as well as to the south and on the terraces.
But on the east side, we chose black cladding
because it is fairly cheap and it serves mainly
to keep the water and the humidity out of the house.
NARRATOR: The walkways and terraces
are also covered with SIP panels,
and there's even a wooden deck on the roof.
If the plans are well thought out and the measurements correct,
the main building can go up quickly and cheaply.
INTERPRETER: So here we have a house of 1,500 square feet
that costs $120,000 and was built in just two weeks.
NARRATOR: Once the frame was built,
the electricians, plumbers, and decorators took over
and were finished in under two months.
INTERPRETER: It has three bedrooms,
plus one bedroom for staff,
three bathrooms, including the main one,
a large, spacious living-dining room,
a kitchen, and several terraces.
NARRATOR: Casa SIP was built with just 148 wooden panels
and costs 70% less than the average house.
So Alejandro is convinced
it's the inexpensive home of the future.
Now we're off to Morocco,
where a 17th-century home has been rescued from the rubble.
NARRATOR: Welcome back to "Extreme Homes."
Our next stop is in the ancient imperial city of Fez, Morocco,
a World Heritage Site
where Australian author Sandy McCutcheon and his wife
have made a home.
This is Riad Zany, and you're very welcome.
NARRATOR: In Arabic, the word "riad" means "garden."
In Morocco, it also signifies a particular kind of large home.
McCUTCHEON: So, when you come through the entrance way,
you end up in the courtyard,
which is the heart of any house in Fez
that's known as a riad, a garden house.
Four trees, and at the heart of it, the fountain.
NARRATOR: It looks beautiful now,
but a few years ago, it was a crumbling mess.
However, the McCutcheons saw the potential.
They bought the building
and started to restore it
to what it had been 350 years ago.
We have an extraordinary photograph
of the way it was during the renovation,
but this is where we are standing.
That's the view when it was the renovation.
And if I put the book down, there you are.
That's the way it is now.
NARRATOR: It took 18 skilled craftsmen 18 months
to painstakingly restore the building
from rubble to riad.
I absolutely love the way that in Islamic architecture,
every single surface is decorated in some way --
not just painted, but carved, inlayed, the whole thing.
There's always a different style of decoration wherever you go.
NARRATOR: Suzanna McCutcheon's childhood nickname was "Zany,"
hence Riad Zany.
The two floors in the riad
surround and face the inner courtyard.
On the first floor are the main living room,
dining room, kitchen,
and a bathroom, a hamam.
So, this is the hamam -- the bathroom.
Beautiful, long space, old bricks,
and on this side, even older stone work.
And here -- another little gem in the house.
Like an archeological dig, I was cleaning along here,
and I came across this old urn made by the system
of one big piece fitting into a smaller piece,
smaller piece, smaller piece.
And what we discovered when we talked to local archeologists
was that this is an ancient mineral-water spring.
And the people here made a living selling mineral water.
NARRATOR: Upstairs, a catwalk links two bedrooms.
This is the traditional bedroom
used by guests for several centuries.
This is the mesraya.
It's a beautiful room with plaster
that was done probably 1800s sometime.
The glass work at the back
behind the carved plaster is Iraqi glass.
It's glass made from sand that came from Iraq.
And in the morning, when the sun comes through,
as you can see,
beautiful colored patterns on the wall.
NARRATOR: But the real treasure sits at the top of the room.
McCUTCHEON: Above us, the ceiling --
hand-carved, hand-painted cedar, hundreds of years old,
and when we came here, it was falling down,
and I had to go up on the terrace,
take the tiles off the terrace,
dig down, and repair it.
Now, thankfully, it's safe.
NARRATOR: At the other end of the catwalk
is the master bedroom.
The tiles here -- absolutely know
they are really old.
They are original.
And we didn't want to over-restore,
so we've kept them as they were.
And here -- this is the master bedroom.
The beautiful old doors from the mellah, the Jewish quarter,
and we saw them and we said,
"No, no, don't restore anything. Leave them like they are."
They're almost like a work of art.
NARRATOR: And finally, above the bedrooms
is a large, flat roof terrace.
This is what made me and my wife want to buy the place --
was this view, this extraordinary view.
NARRATOR: We've seen homes of all shapes and sizes
in locations everywhere,
from a beehive-shaped farm house in South Africa
to a fish bowl in Japan to a 350-year-old Moroccan riad.
But they all have something in common --
to their owners, they're simply home, sweet home.
Thanks for watching "Extreme Homes."