Maze, Tank, Chalkboard

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're taking a close look at these spectacular homes to find out just what makes each of them so extreme. This home is inspired by a treasure trove of ancient beams. This one has traded in stairs for slopes. We'll show you a home that's a fisherman's dream. And a Miami penthouse that looks down on passing aircraft. From their shapes and their sizes to their locations, we're checking out some of the coolest residences around. -- Captions by VITAC -- Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC. Las Vegas-- Entertainment Capital of the World -- is a fitting location for our first extreme home. It's the biggest, the most self-indulgent, the most extravagant, and the most luxurious. The $30 million house is a mega-mansion even here, the home of mega, on the most expensive street in Las Vegas. When owner, pharmaceuticals mogul John Candy, decided to build his family home, the question he asked was not, "What do I need?" but "What do I want?" And the answer was "Everything." The house has 8 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, a spa, gym, a theater, a nightclub, room for 14 cars, and a very big front door. CANDY: Our biggest concern was, when somebody tells you there's a 23-foot door going in your house that's six-foot wide, your first thought is, "That's not gonna work." The architect's argument was, the scale of the home could support such a door. So, ultimately, as in most new homes, the architect typically wins, and in this case, he did. NARRATOR: It's not just the door. Everything here is supersize. It's tall -- over 36 feet high -- and extends across a massive, 1½-acre site, the size of a corporate H.Q. Unlike a lot of Vegas, though, it's no sham, being built from rugged and long-lasting materials. As befits a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, architect Vernon Swaback began with stone and used it on a scale his mentor would never have dreamed possible. They bought a $2 million mountain of the stuff and imported it from China. Every piece is five inches thick and hand-carved to make the walls. Most indoor family time is spent in the great room. There is, of course, the largest volume of insulated glass on the west coast -- $45,000 worth. And the glass walls all retract to make the most of any desert breeze. We spend 50% of our time in this room, and as such, we added a lot of features that help us with that. All the doors, windows slide open. We've got a very large fireplace and a very large couch, when we're entertaining, that will seat close to 15 people. NARRATOR: Also on the ground floor -- a kitchen with granite surfaces and -- count them -- eight dishwashers. And another complete, working kitchen for the butler. So much for the practicalities. It's really all about the luxuries, like the movie theater with custom-built leather seating and a carpet that, even in the dark, looks all of its $100,000 cost. And if the 20-minute drive to Vegas is too much... ...there's a nightclub just one level up. For those in a hurry, it's the fastest elevator money can buy. Even night owls need their sleep, and in the desert heat, John kept the bedrooms as airy as possible. CANDY: Less indoor, more outdoor. The reasoning for that was, we basically sleep indoors, but in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the temperatures being somewhat mild, we want to actually sit and enjoy outdoors. NARRATOR: With no limit to the budget or the imagination, what did John want to do with the outside space? Well, it involves gold. We wanted to get away from a typical rectangle pool and get more into a pool with some depths. So, basically, in order to accomplish that, we had to have different types of tiles incorporated in the pool. One of those was a blend of 18-karat gold-leaf tile, along with other tiles, to make that happen. It ended up being a zero-edge, double-infinity pool. NARRATOR: This home has the infrastructure of a hotel with storage... a huge plant room to service it... ...and garaging for a fleet of cars. But not many would add what John specified on his wish list. I wanted the ability to be able to clean the cars myself. In fact, I'm the only one that is allowed to be able to accomplish that task. We built a garage complete with deionized water, indoor waxing lights, as well as a vacuum. NARRATOR: So, this is what it all comes down to. Luxury is not just owning a fleet of cars. It's being able to wash them inside your $30 million home. Our next home is located in the Czech Republic. You can't miss it. It's along a country road just south of the capital, Prague. CILLIK: It's too cold. It's snow. It's winter. I don't like it. NARRATOR: But it was owner Michal Cillik's plans the neighbors disliked. It took him nearly 10 years to get permission to build, and they still don't like it -- this alien block of pinkish concrete poking up among their traditional wooden homes. Inside, the unusual layout of the house comes from Michal's determination to have a very modern home that would provide him with two important things. The views -- this was one of them. And let's say the cinema -- this was another of them. NARRATOR: In the media room, he wanted a sloping floor, just like a commercial cinema. But making anything not on the level means it's going to cost a bundle. His architect said the cost of building a level floor above the sloping one was -- well, forget it. The architect tell me, "I have one idea, but it's a very crazy idea." The idea was two slopes -- one and second one -- and... I like it. NARRATOR: So, two sloping floors, one above the other, meant Michal got his commercial cinema floor in the media room and stayed within budget. But it meant saying "goodbye" to stairs and "hello" to a new way of life. The house is made from the usual materials. It has a brick exterior with both floors and roof made of wood -- nothing to upset the neighbors there. It was the look of the house when it was finished that caused the trouble with the bright pink paint job, which is why they called it the Marshmallow House. But there's more to the pink than just paint. Underneath it is one of the most innovative things about the building -- a polyurethane insulation coated with a U.V. filter. It makes the house waterproof and keeps it warm in winter. The color was supposed to be for fun. It was a pink color. But this pink was very aggressive when it was new. Our expectation was that after three, five years, the color of the house will be the same like the color of human skin. I like much more this color, not this bright pink, but it was needed -- to start with this bright pink. NARRATOR: The interior is as radical as the outside. There are almost no internal walls, with the floors alternating between straight and sloping levels parallel with the angle of the site. As long as no one runs, it should be okay. The wide slopes make the space feel open, but you have to watch your footing. The green floor color is splashed around the place, contrasting with walls and ceilings of polished concrete -- like in the main living space at the center of the home. CILLIK: This is the dining area. Here, we are spending a lot of time eating, chitchatting, and what's great is this huge window. And in the case that it's summer and a nice summer day, you can see a lot. I like it. I like to sit here. NARRATOR: There's nothing store-bought about this home. Everything from the suspended chairs and bean bags on the ramp areas to the closets is custom-built. The 21-degree slopes are covered with an anti-slip, synthetic rubber. It's been injury-free so far. Outside is another matter. The children's bedroom, right at the bottom, is half buried underground, but the kids love it. This is their paradise. We have two children. This house is something -- what children from the neighborhood prefer. It's playground for them. Here is also a space for working. This is my table. Here is the table of my daughter. NARRATOR: From outside, the huge windows do more than just let in light. They also create an illusion. They're large in proportion to the walls and make the house seem smaller than it really is, which is probably a good thing for a home neighbors call the Marshmallow House. Next, we're down in Australia at a private haven hidden behind a maze. NARRATOR: We're back with more "Extreme Homes." Our next home is located on the highest point of the Mornington Peninsula, just south of Melbourne, Australia. It's an area known for its beaches and its rolling hills, and although it looks calm enough, it can also get very windy. From above, it looks like a crop circle or a labyrinth. In fact, it's a secluded family home. The owners wanted shelter from the elements, but they also wanted open views of the landscape and ocean beyond. They were even thinking of creating a little slice of the Mediterranean in the Australian outback. They told architect Stephen Jolson what they wanted. He managed to steer them away from the Mediterranean theme and back to their roots. They wanted the house to be built from stone, and images were presented to us of beautiful villas in the south of France. Said that we would design them a home that related to the Australian landscape. Our idea was to use local earth from the quarries, so the driveways and the pathways and the dry riverbed in front of the house and all the walls of the house are actually made from a local Dromana crushed rock, and the house became the Earth House. NARRATOR: This elegant, sophisticated house was built with the most basic of local materials. It's made from rammed earth, quarried locally, then combined with sand and gravel to create a super-strong framework. It needed to be, given the weather in this part of Australia. JOLSON: The walls are very, very thick and robust, and in winter, the winds here are extreme. In summer, the heat is oppressive, and it really was about coming up with a very solid, robust material that could cater for all the changing seasons. NARRATOR: Building with rammed earth is a tricky, slow process. So it costs more than traditional brick or wooden construction. But its great looks and durability makes it a worthwhile choice. There are two ways to enter -- a hidden front door behind a windbreak... or through an antique, Buddhist-temple gate that opens onto a courtyard between the two wings of the house. The wings are like separate apartments, and each contain a living room, bedrooms, and work areas arranged in an arc so every room has a unique view. Everything is on one floor with the main living room and kitchen in the center. This narrow, winding, 83-foot-long hallway between the wings is one of the more unusual details of the design -- a throwback to the original Mediterranean inspiration. It's reminiscent of the experience of being in hilltop villages in the south of France, but, really, it's about taking on this journey from lightness into darkness and back into lightness, where the views are represented. NARRATOR: After being in that long, closed-in hallway, suddenly walking out into a room with the light and the view is doubly dramatic, and that's no accident. JOLSON: The brief was really quite holistic. It was to design a house but also its landscape and the way both of them interact with the environment. NARRATOR: They planted a formal avenue of trees as a windbreak and to contrast with the agricultural landscape. And they seeded the grounds with wild grasses that thrive in the winds. The maze adds even more order to the landscape, and there was a fun ulterior motive for creating it. It was actually our client's idea to introduce the maze that would enable her grandchildren to run and get lost. NARRATOR: This is a house that's designed to fit in with, and stand up to, its environment. The result is a smart, tough home that's a refuge of calm from the elements... and the grandchildren. Our next stop is the tallest penthouse in all of Miami with some unbelievable amenities. NARRATOR: We've seen a lavish Vegas mansion where pleasure rules... a hidden haven in the Australian outback... and a pink Czech hillside home built on a slope. Our next home is at the very top of the very highest condo on North Beach, Miami. The penthouse on the 46th floor, with its unmistakable crowned roof and spectacular views is a landmark on Millionaire's Row. The distinction of the Akoya is that it's the tallest of all the structures in Miami Beach on the water, so it's a very private, high, luxurious condo here in Miami Beach. NARRATOR: The owners bought the top three floors of the building, cleared them out, and began designing from scratch to create the most coveted condo on the beach. Money was no object, apparently. Everything is white -- white-quartz floors, Venetian plaster walls, and white furniture, as well. It's very minimalist. There is limited pieces of art, so it's the perfect gallery type of an environment. NARRATOR: The entrance to this triplex is on the middle floor. There's big, open living room -- ocean everywhere you look. Then a kitchen, dining room, and sun deck. Stairs lead down to three bedrooms on floor one, all with their own bathrooms, and all the same stark white with drop-dead ocean views. And sometimes, in Miami, you can get a little too much sun, so all the rooms have black-out blinds for when you need them. The top floor of the penthouse is pure hedonism. The wraparound deck is perfect for relaxing and soaking up some rays. Or if you get tired of that, they flew in a little bit of ocean, too, so you can just take a dip and enjoy the view at the same time. You generally get to see a sunrise and a sunset from up here. You get to see ocean, so you can watch the boats, the city lights, and the sea itself. We're at over 500 feet here. Aircraft move below our floor. The Coast Guard helicopters fly below us. Personal aircraft fly below this, so you get that as an additional bonus. NARRATOR: This location has always attracted highfliers. The Rat Pack, The Beatles, and many Hollywood glitterati have lived and performed on Millionaire's Row. Our next home is located near Brussels in Belgium -- a straitlaced, law-abiding kind of city that has given rise to a home that breaks the rules. One that positively encourages the kind of behavior that most parents say a definite "no" to. It's the Chalkboard House, designed by Barbara Oelbrandt as a home for her own family -- mom, dad, and three young children. There were two rules Barbara set herself. The house had to be economical to build and to run. And most importantly, it would celebrate the pleasures of having kids around. They would have a freedom to use the house in their own particular way. The house is a brick construction set on a dense concrete block to help hold on to the heat it soaks up and generates. They added massive amounts of insulation before cladding in two different materials fit for both purpose and their budget. On the ground floor, the outer skin is rubber -- good for drawing on. The upper level is clad in U.V.-resistant, glass-fiber fabric that has also been used as blinds to roll down over the windows when the sun is high. The south-facing side of the house is mainly glass, triple-glazed to hold on to the sun's warmth when it does shine. And it's so efficient that heat held during the summer months is still releasing back into the house during winter, making it economical to run. The walls indoors are partly cast concrete, but mainly glass. So the architect has delivered freedom for the kids, but under a parent's ever-watchful eye. The ground level is functional, with a room set aside for multiple use. It could be a garage, a storeroom, but is used now as a playroom. The master bedroom and bathroom are also on this level. The stairs are in two asymmetric sections, cleverly designed with built-in storage. They're set in a glass stairwell to get as much light to the lower level as possible. Glass skylights set into the roof also raise the light levels. Upstairs is where the family spends most time, with a sitting area, a sleek kitchen, and nearby dining space. Along with the children's bedrooms and a shower room is their own private area set aside for quiet work. Barbara took another child-centered leap when she designed the exterior look of the house. The front yard is a play area with all the local kids welcome. They can play basketball, ride bikes -- all the fun and games on their doorstep. And when night falls, it's time for a different kind of activity -- homework -- in the house built to make a family life that suits every member of the family. Our next home is in London, and it's not so much a room with a view as a tank with a view. NARRATOR: We're back on our tour of the world's most extreme homes. We head now to Lambeth, South London, to a 10-story building with wraparound views of the London skyline. But this is no ordinary high-rise. It's an old Victorian water tower. And when owners Leigh and Graham saw it in 2010, they had to have it. OSBORNE: It's incredible that nobody got their hands on it before. We love London -- we love what London's got, and we both love old buildings. It was the last and only unconverted water tower in London. The water tower was built in 1877 and served the Lambeth workhouse built for the poor and destitute. Star of the silent screen Charlie Chaplin spent his early years in this area. The tower was derelict for years because even though there were permits to build, there was also a possible deal breaker. Anyone who wanted to make this huge vertical space livable had to include the cast-iron water tank in their plan. It had to stay. So, Leigh and Graham bought it for the view, cut holes for windows, installed darkened glass, and turned it into a room with a view -- the prospect room. It's nearly 100 feet up, and from the outside, the windows are all but invisible. From inside, they're mind-blowing. And what a view, just from this window alone. You go from Canary Wharf in the east to the city, to Westminster, Big Ben, the Wheel just there. And that's just one window. NARRATOR: So, they had a view. Now, they needed a home. They began by making rooms in the tower. Each floor is a single room, so there are four bedrooms and a gym, all with a mix of modern and Victorian details. To get some horizontal living space, they added a large, modern cube-shaped extension to one side. It houses a kitchen, a sitting room, and a 400-square-foot roof terrace. And no surprise, it has the largest sliding-glass doors of any residential building in the U.K., weighing 1/3 of a ton each. But who'd want to use this many stairs between the five floors of the tower? Not Leigh and Graham, so they installed an elevator and built a separate tower for it. Glass corridors connect each floor to the old tower. Living in a tower calls for a different mind-set. It's not for everyone. VOCE: Normally, one room leads into the next, into the next on a horizontal level, but this is just straight up, and so you're forever going up to come back down. OSBORNE: You've got to be so tidy and so organized. If you put something down, it can take a week to find it. NARRATOR: The couple has breathed new life into this London landmark and turned it into a home of epic proportions. And the good news is, no one lost their head in this tower of London. San Francisco is famous for the architecture of its many fine, historical, and contemporary buildings. Our next home is located among them and is one of the smallest. It's the home of John Craven, a follower of the tiny-home movement, dedicated to making homes that celebrate small and a belief that less is more. This was a way for me to just really come back to what is my most essential way to live. This place works, as small as it is, because I've been able to pare down my stuff to what is just essential for me, and this is why small spaces work. NARRATOR: This extremely small space began life as a practical solution. John and his wife wanted to raise their young son together but live apart. I'm climbing down the ladder. NARRATOR: So they made over the shack that was in the backyard of their family home. Originally, this was a shed we built about five years ago, just a place for yoga and playing music, and then I decided to make this my own home. See how long this is. Measure this one. 40 minutes. That's 40 minutes? Excellent. NARRATOR: To make it his home a touch away from home, John created a curved roof over his bedroom. The whole thing was built using just hand tools and local materials, like these shingles. What tools did we use to build the Shack? And dad's hoping it's going to be like father, like son. Do we use a drill? Yeah. NARRATOR: The rafters are made from Glulam beams. To you and me, that's glued layers of plywood that can be bent into curves. They're elegant, but also strong. Lofts in a triangle always felt very cramped, so I could increase the volume and the size of the building without increasing the height or the width by creating this curved roof. So I think that's been the main innovation in this structure that really makes it work. Turn the light off. NARRATOR: Everything in the house is built from reclaimed materials and downsized. All in all, the house is just 12½ feet tall with a mere 100 square feet of usable space -- smaller than your regular bathroom. I bring people into here, and either people see a deprived life or they see the freedom in it, and it's really hard to convince someone who sees this as a deprived life that it actually is freedom. NARRATOR: Now we're heading to the Netherlands and to thatched house that has something old... but also something definitely new. NARRATOR: We're back with more "Extreme Homes." The windswept coast of the North Sea is the location of our next home. The Thatched Villa is in the Netherlands, located in one of the area's long-standing artist colonies. And the Villa is a work of art, too, with a bold use of geometric shapes in the design. And some extreme thatching on the roof. Welcome to my house. NARRATOR: Dutch winters can be dark, so owners *** and Pien Luyt wanted their new home to capture as much available sunlight as possible. And they wanted to be cozy, so they added a massive, sculptural brick chimney for open fires. This is the chimney. And so, you can see there are two doors in the chimney. It is the east side of the house, and the sun is coming in the morning and shines in our bedroom. NARRATOR: They were very specific about the roof. It had to protect them from the elements like a warm blanket. So architect Sjoerd Soeters took the traditional thatched-house design as a starting point and created a loaf-shaped house, then cut it in two -- one side for the people, the other for the cars. If you look at the house and the garage, it is just like it was together and they took a knife and cut it. I like this very much. NARRATOR: The house presents two contrasting sides to the world -- a mix of old and new styles and materials. There's the low, thatched side and the glassed-in other side. Thatch is common enough in Dutch roofs, but this is a bit different. Here, it's layered in three panels -- a new technique with this ancient roofing material. Okay, this is the place where I hang up my coat. Here is the big hall. It's very high, and you have over there a round window for the light. NARRATOR: The living areas have limestone floors and smooth stucco-plaster walls. It makes a cool backdrop for the owners' collections. The user-friendly kitchen has slate floors and stainless-steel work tops. There's something new and something old here mixed together to create a warm feel. Big double doors open onto the dining room, but better not rely on these antique clocks for the time. And a handsome staircase leads up to the bedrooms. LUYT: Here is the bedroom with a beautiful view. And the light is now, at this moment, also beautiful. NARRATOR: The vista from the guest bedroom is as carefully framed as a painting. If you are sleeping over there, you look outside. Look. So beautiful is it. NARRATOR: The home's windows are orientated to the sun's journey as it crosses the sky, so each room enjoys some warming rays. LUYT: The light is playing all the day with the house. Start on the east side, south, and west side. NARRATOR: Like the old Dutch masters, this house uses light skillfully and age-old materials in a fresh, new way. Our next home is in the Florida Keys, and it's more like a full-sized resort centered around a luxurious mansion built for a family with a passion -- fishing. The site has got water on three sides and plenty of deepwater anchorage. From here, they can run out and do some blue-water fishing and come back at the end of the day to the comforts of a luxurious home. The owners keep the boat tied up here and built quarters for their captain on the grounds. It has everything a serious fisherman needs, like the fish-cleaning room with its giant freezer and refrigerator. And it's designed for hosing down once the messy work is finished. The tackle room is nearby and ready for the next piece of action. The family kitchen is ready for anything, too, with an eight-burner Wolf range big enough to handle any catch of the day. There's a huge, two-story reception area inside the entrance. It has a wall of windows built from the largest sheet of toughened glass ever installed. It's there to resist the occasional annoying hurricane. There's a media room and four guest bedrooms, each with its own marble bathroom. The master bedroom has a private stairway to the pool and spa. The grounds of the mansion are extravagant in scale and natural splendor. Special tropical planting brings the wild right into the heart of the Keys. There's a tennis court... pool with swim-to bar... outdoor kitchen... and waterfalls set among the banyan trees. This estate is serious about its fun, but especially its passion for fishing. And this is no family of amateurs. They've landed a record-breaking 58-pound mahimahi and a monster 430-pound marlin. Nice! Our next home is in Canada, and takes century-old beams for a warehouse to create an elegant family home. NARRATOR: We're back on our tour of the home's most extreme homes. Our next home is 30 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia, in the extremely scenic town of White Rock. It's the brainchild of star architect Omer Arbel. The angular, almost industrial-looking construction blends surprisingly well with the forest setting. Omer called it House 23.2 -- a rather boring name for such an exciting home. Basically, it's the 23rd project that we've done, hence 23 -- .2 because it's the second version of the 23rd idea. NARRATOR: A simple name for a very complex design. The owners, a reclusive tycoon and his family, trusted Omer to design the interior, as well. And they had a few musts. Each room had to open onto the outside, and the roof line of the house had to lie below the level of the surrounding trees. And one wasn't so much a request as a demand. Omer was required to use a stash of very large, very old industrial beams within the design. The owners of the house came to us with very few requirements, but one of them was extremely profound. These beams that you see here -- these very massive reclaimed timbers -- they were basically torn down from a series of warehouses that had been in the family for quite some time. NARRATOR: You can't pick up wooden beams this big at the lumber market. In fact, you can't buy 100-foot-long beams anywhere anymore. These are really rare, and date back to the 19th century. ARBEL: Several of these beams were milled out of one single Douglas fir tree, which, if you can imagine, means the diameter of the trunk is probably two or three meters. They really reference the natural history of this place, and they have an emotional attachment directly related to the family that lives here in this house. NARRATOR: Instead of trying to hide them, Omer placed the old beams right up front with all their quirky imperfections and personality on display. Our challenge was to develop a geometry that would somehow be able to accommodate all those different lengths and weave them coherently into a domestic space. NARRATOR: The visible beams form the framework of the house, creating odd angles everywhere you look. The builders didn't completely share Omer's confidence in the plan, so they created their own insurance in case things didn't go as planned. They would do things like build -- mock up the wall out of plywood 'cause they were so worried that they'd build it on all these angles based on the drawings, that I'd come back and say, "Oh, that's all wrong." And then they'd have me sign the wall to approve it, like, actually sign the plywood so that they could pull them back out in the event of disaster later and say, "No, no, you approved this." We never got to that point. NARRATOR: All the walls are poured concrete cast in cedar frames with a thick layer of insulation sandwiched in the middle. The grain of the cedar is imprinted onto the concrete to give a more natural, less industrial feel to the house. The cedar frames were then reused as decking on the roof. The ceiling between the beams is planks of Douglas fir, another tough, load-bearing wood. Every door and window opens fully to blur the lines between inside and out. The roof is supported by a slender steel post and appears to float over the room. Walk through the large, open living room, and you move into a kitchen and dining area. Everything is custom-built to fit the eccentric spaces. Even the recycled glass-globe lights are designed by Omer. All the rooms open off this long, tilted corridor. At the end are the kids' quarters, with a door to keep the kids in or the parents out. Begins with this, just, very massive wood door that slides closed or open. And the idea is that basically it gives an option of privacy. So the kids can have their side of the house and make lots of noise, and that's fine. NARRATOR: The kids' area is pretty cool with three bedrooms and its own TV room. The master bedroom suite is back on the grown-ups' side of the house, next to a well-organized study and a big media room. Omer designed open shelves for storage and enough wall space to hang works of art. The same wood finishes, textured concrete walls, and polished concrete and wood floors pull together the different areas. House 23.2 has defied its understated name and recently made the short list for the World Architecture awards -- Omer's reward for this unusual and remarkable home. Our next visit is to San Diego and an eye-catching home that uses geometry to make its mark. NARRATOR: Welcome back to "Extreme Homes." Our next home is down by the beach in San Diego, California. And it's so amazing, even bizarre, that it's become a local landmark. The Triangle House is 50 years old and still getting attention as if it were the new kid on the block. It was Ken Kellogg's very first commission. He's the San Diego architect famous for building unconventional buildings that break all the rules. Current owner Billy Conner bought the place in the '90s after years of neglect. He fell in love with it the moment he saw it. A lot of people ask me, am I the architect, and I say, "No, just the lucky guy that can live here." NARRATOR: Billy's given the house a new lease on life since he moved in. Lucky for him, the original architect was on hand to help out. We went through the whole house, and it was a great experience to understand a lot of the dynamics of the house, and then, also, Ken, over the years, has come and helped me with some of the ideas on the house. NARRATOR: It was built on a typical, tiny San Diego lot but also odd and triangular-shaped -- hence Triangle House. CONNER: It's about 20 feet in the front, 60 feet on one side, 80 on the other, so it forms a triangle. So it's very wide in the back and goes to kind of the point in the front. NARRATOR: The wonderful details inside the house are matched on the exterior. It's a series of untreated copper triangles that intersect and overlap one another. The glasswork throughout the house is bold. Dynamic, triangular windows let in plenty of light while making a strong architectural statement. Every frame is custom-made and hand-crafted. One of the nice features of the home is the way the front of the home opens to the water. With all the doors open, you get just a great view of the water and the beach and all the surroundings. So, it's unusual to be able to open a house like this and open the front like that. When you're looking out at the bay, if you just had a flat plane across here, you'd see the bay. By being on angles, you can see down the bay and angle up the bay. So you see more of a view that's out in front than you would if you had just the flat square box. NARRATOR: All the glass in the house is made of the same material as in telescopic lenses. It's optically ground to 1/4-of-an-inch thickness and so clear, it appears invisible. Billy has picked out his favorite vantage points throughout the house. The odd angles and corners create lookout spots in the most unexpected places. I'm actually gonna take you through the closet. There's a...I call it kind of the secret door that's in the back of this closet that's gonna take us up on the deck of the home. NARRATOR: And once there, the high-quality glass makes for great views. As you can see through the back side of the bedroom here through the front living area of the home, you can see right through the home on to the water. So it gives you very much a perspective of what the home from the front and the back look like. Just another great spot to hang out. No one knows about this one. This is real private. NARRATOR: There's a lavish use of fine wood to match the extravagant use of optical glass. The walls are solid Philippine mahogany with 1/4-inch tongue-and-groove joints. All of the doors and ceilings are made from knotty pine. The kitchen cabinets are made of birch and floors of teak, eucalyptus, and bamboo. Architect Ken Kellogg added a chimney and a tall patio wall, both made from a rare volcanic material called drift rock. There's something familiar about the imaginative use of natural materials and the willingness to think outside of four square walls. Sure enough, turns out Ken was an early student of iconic American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It's in honor of his giving the public and younger architects inspiration to do something more than just what everybody else is doing. NARRATOR: Triangle House has become a well-known local landmark. But no one loves it more than the man who built it and the man who now owns it. CONNER: As you can see from this view, it's actually a breathtaking view. In fact, this house gets people stopping all the time, and there are probably 10 or 15 people a day -- take pictures of the home. There's times I've been in the house all day long, realizing I haven't really left the home and just kind of get mesmerized by the view, so very lucky to be able to live here in a very enjoyable place to spend -- spend the day. NARRATOR: We've seen homes of all shapes and sizes in locations around the world. From a Miami penthouse that reaches to the stars... to a stairless Czech home. We've seen a house where passion for fishing comes first and an ocean-side classic inspired by geometry. But all of these houses have something in common. To their owners, they're simply home sweet home. Thanks for watching "Extreme Homes."