A View From the Bridge

I may have mentioned that we renovated our house without the services of an architect.  It's not that we have anything against architects -- in fact, there are many whose work I admired and have been inspired by -- Frank Lloyd Wright and Sarah Susanka* in particular.  It's just that we've never had the good fortune to hire one that actually listened to us.   

We've tried.  In our first attempt, we wanted to add an office wing to our old house which would allow us to renovate the master bedroom and bath above it.  The first thing we told the architect was that he could be as inventive as he wanted, BUT... our marriage would not survive having to share a closet.  A simple request.  And clear: two closets or certain divorce.  You know how this ends.  He brought back a plan with one large shared closet.  We divorced him. 

So when we bought this 1950's ranch, we knew that the easy path to renovation would have been to simply add a second story and turn it into a center hall colonial.  In fact, those ranches were designed with that kind of expansion in mind.  But we had two objections to this route: 

1. That would be boring and, 
2. There was this steep hill behind the house, and wouldn't it be cool to have a bridge directly from the house to it.  

We were working with a wonderful contractor -- Steve Powers -- who had helped us through our prior renovation post-separation (from the architect, that is).  And he shared our enthusiasm for the unusual and had an unwarranted amount of confidence in my ability to play the role of architect.  So we went for it.  I did the design and we hired an engineer to do the necessary drawings.  Lo and behold, it was the engineer we wound up fighting with -- over the bridge.  Too unstable, railing not to code; what if a guest decided to toss himself over the edge -- he (the engineer) would be liable.

Two giant turnbuckles provide the tension to
keep the bridge stable and taut

Once again Steve saved the day with an ingenious design involving giant turnbuckles.  I added the railing design with nautical cable and horizontal copper tubing -- a theme we'd carry over into all the fencing and railing around the house.






It's been five years now, and there's no sign of imminent collapse.  On the contrary, the bridge is one of my favorite parts of this whole project.  And in all humility, it's one of the design features I'm most proud of.  Despite all the changes we made in the process of designing the rest of the house, this folly was there from the beginning and I was determined to make sure it was there at the end.

And I've never regretted it.  The bridge is right outside the bedroom slider, so it's the first place I look when I wake up in the morning.  I check the weather and watch twitterpated squirrels chase each other around the hemlocks. If it's not raining, it's the first place I set foot to see what's coming up, and what projects should be top priority.

It's a private vantage point -- not visible from the street, and hidden from any neighbors' view.  So often, I'll simply walk the entire balcony and bridge for a leisurely pajama clad survey.  In the early morning, there's often a mist rising from the beds, and it all has a bit of a fairy tale feeling. 


Come with me for a stroll. 

The sun casts my shadow on the patio below

And starts to spread across the vegetable garden

I can see all the way over to the forsythia on the fence line

Looking directly out the slider you get a view up the hill

A closer look at the steps leading to our seating area

So my view from the bridge tends to be a lot more pleasant than Arthur Miller's.  And if it never runs on Broadway, who cares!

*  For anyone interested in constructing really livable spaces, I highly recommend you start with Sarah Susanka's books:  Home by Design, and The Not So Big House, both from Taunton Press.