Free Standing Ellipse

Large-scale free-standing stair for a custom home in Portland, Oregon built by Green Gables. Hand-shaped custom handrail profile, structural steel subassembly, and hand-carved descending volutes. Shop-built stair base using traditional housed-and-wedged construction, a method employed by skilled craftsmen in the Boston area and extensively in prewar Europe. Instead of framing in the staircase with rough, new growth 2 x 4 construction, a housed and wedged stair is purpose built with the attention and detail of a furniture maker. This construction method ensures for a strong, stiff, and importantly squeak-free staircase.