Oak Residence

What's now a generous lower-level entertainment room and guest suite - opening to the pool just outside - used to be a forgotten basement storage space in this classic Brookside home. Low-ceilinged, dim, effectively unusable. The owner wanted to reclaim it as real living space that spoke to his modern taste. That meant lowering the floor.

Lowering a basement floor in an occupied home asks every system above it to keep working while the slab disappears beneath. HVAC trunks, plumbing stacks, the main electrical service — all of it routed through this space, none of it could be interrupted. Excavation was sequenced around what couldn't move, what had to move was rerouted, the rest was protected.

What the new floor unlocked is a full lower-level program: a bar, a wine and cigar room, a dining area, a TV room, and a guest suite. The finished space carries craft details to match the owner's taste — a suspended felt ceiling, a wood stove, exposed stone walls, a custom steel-and-glass stair, and cast-bronze door handles made from sticks collected at the owner's lake property. The result is a lower level that speaks to what a forgotten room can become as well as the technical and craft work that got it there.
_{Photography: Bob Greespan Photography}