Designing a Neoclassical Foyer Stair

As I began to map out the post it became clear that in order to tell the story properly, it needed to be broken down into parts. It has been a long, interesting, educational and at times painful journey. Having said that – all ended well, but not at all where we started… Today, I am sticking just to the pretty pictures and sources of inspiration, to give you an idea of where we started.

The floor plan below shows locates the stair in the context of

the floor tile layout and several adjoining rooms off the foyer. It is a two story space with the second floor stair landing/hall running from right to left above the family room and kitchen.

In reality the stair and tile layout were conceived simultaneously. The following images are examples of stairs and tile layouts we drew inspiration and ideas from.

Our client loved the tile pattern/border in Brooke Astor’s Holly Hill House. We also drew inspiration from how the stair lands and flairs, which will be more evident in my next post.

SERGE J.F. LEVY/AP Photographer

The sweep of the hand rail form the Nathaniel Russell House… Look closely, the hand rail is composed of many individually carved curved segments.

She fell in love with this older wrought iron stair balustrade.

And this more modern spin on a similar motif.

Sally and I had budgetary concerns and in fact much preferred the character of stairs with simpler wrought iron balusters, as in these examples.

Before our client was willing to consider a simple baluster, we had to go thru the “exercise” of what would the more complex balustrade cost.

And so the adventure began…

Stay tuned…

Cheers,

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