Home design: A supersized kitchen island fit for a family’s busy lifestyle
Architect and builder Michael Graf loves a good steel staircase. Take the monorail steel stair with chunky white oak treads that he designed for the Jones family, who relocated north of Boston two years ago. It serves several purposes. Aesthetically, it is the home’s focal point and echoes the building’s black windows and the Eastern white pine cladding of the detached garage, which figures prominently in the view. Functionally, it connects the main living space to the primary bedroom suite on the top level as well as to the bar and the adjacent entertaining areas on the lower level. Architecturally, it is the organizing principle for the main floor’s open plan. “The stair divides the space into distinct areas, driving how each one is used,” Graf says.
