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Our most ambitious residential project to date, the Castle is
fifteen thousand square feet. It required extensive development
of a ten acre lot which is twenty minutes south of the Las Vegas
Strip. The client is a headline entertainer on The Strip. He was
not able to find a home in a gated community which fit his
personality. He toured
The Slammer,
the residence which we designed for Penn Jillette, and engaged
our studio after an initial meeting.
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| Click on an image to go to the gallery. |
Through a three year process, as we crept towards the grading
permit and the day we could finally start working on the access
road to the site, the client was kept up-to-date on every step.
We delivered a model of the project (one inch equals eight feet)
which helped to maintain the client’s enthusiasm for the
project during the lengthy permit and site preparation phases.
Although the client wanted a Castle, he knew that we are not set
dressers or theme-park architects (Las Vegas has plenty of both).
So it is a modern building of stark cubic volumes arranged around
the top of the irregular building pad at the top of the eighty-foot
high hill. The volumes create a landscaped courtyard, and rise at
right angles to the fall lines of the various slopes. This is similar to
the way traditional crusades castles were sited on their
commanding hilltops.
In this residence, the individual groupings of volumes represent
distinct parts of the program: public spaces, private spaces and
a guest wing. The separation of these functions means that the
house can be cooled (or heated) only as needed. The client is
able to stay mostly in the master suite, which has all of the
functions that his daily life requires. The forms tell a tale of
occupancy and availability.
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| Click on an image to go to the gallery. |
The exterior of the Castle is black split-faced concrete block. This
matches the hillside, which is covered with fist-sized, black, volcanic
rocks and nothing but the scrubbiest desert vegetation. It will be
imposing from below, increasing the security for its celebrity
occupant.
The Castle broke ground in September 2003. The client moved into the
Master Suite in December 2006. There is still landscaping and other
portions of the project that need to be completed.
There are more images, with captions, in the
gallery.
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