The client's brief was deceptively simple: a primary suite at the top of the house and somewhere to be outside above the roofline. The design had to create not just a room but a different register of living.

The roof deck complicated things in the best way. The design needed a path upward that read as an invitation — something that made ascending feel like an arrival rather than a climb.

The attic was opened rather than subdivided. A three-sided fireplace. Exposed brick ascending from the second floor, framed by a grey wood element that doubles as headboard and shelf. Every material decision was made in conversation with the house's original fabric.

The roof access became the project's most dramatic gesture: a sky door that floods the primary suite with light from above. Ipe decking, glass railings, concealed LED lighting under the handrail. The city arrives all at once.

The suite is used differently at different times of day — as a workspace in the morning, a quiet retreat in the afternoon, a place for the city to be visible and beautiful at night.

The house had been hiding its best possible self for over a hundred years. All it needed was for someone to look up.