Obviously, we love it when an architect has an imagination.  Terry Brown, a pretty famous architect, had a great big imagination – not just for the homes he designed for others, but for the home he made for himself.  It’s called The Mushroom House (though some people call it The Tree House) and it’s located in the Hyde Park area of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Lucky for Brown, Hyde Park is a pretty cool neighborhood, because this house is definitely unique.

Brown got the idea for The Mushroom House after he’d been teaching architecture for some time.  He’s also completed a Fulbright Fellowship with Otto Graf at the Vienna Academy of Fine Art, and he’d designed a pretty funky bookstore for the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center.  He liked to work with wood, glass, tiles, shells, and other “found” materials to make his building look like it belonged in nature.  He started building The Mushroom House in 1992, and over the next 14 or 15 years he added to it with the help of his students.  He made the entire project a learning experience for many of his students.

Brown used The Mushroom House as his secondary residence – he taught in Ohio and also had a private architectural firm.  Most recently, he was teaching at Baylor University in Waco, Texas while simultaneously raising longhorn cattle at the 3 Horses Ranch in Rosebud, Texas.  Sadly, he was killed in a tragic car accident on June 28, 2008 at only 53 years old.  The world will truly miss out on the amazing structures he would have created in the years he should have had left.

photo by by Dizzy Atmosphere

Smith Tower was built in 1914, and named after the guy from Smith Corona -  you know, typewriters and guns?  His name was Lyman Cornelius Smith and he set out to build the tallest building in Seattle.  That sort of went out the window when they built the Space Needle, but ol’ Lyman was long gone by then, so he didn’t care.  In fact, he didn’t live to see Smith Tower built either, but it certainly is a magnificent piece of Seattle architecture.

Architecture notwithstanding, it’s size and structure are not the only cool things about Smith Tower.  See, in a building full of offices, it has a surprise at the top – a three-story penthouse apartment.

Originally the top of Smith Tower held a very large water tank and a very small caretaker’s apartment.  During a 1990′s renovation the tank was removed, and a gloriously large space was revealed.  A very rich person leased said space, and got renowned architects Castanes Architects to redesign the inside of the pyramid.

What is left is a funhouse of ladders and stairs in a breathtaking three-story space that is filled with valuable artwork and very unique custom furniture.  All the original catwalks that were used to service the water tank are still there, and wind around the pointy-ceilinged place.  At the very top there is a glass ball that is supposed to offer this amazing view of the city.  No picture on the internet, so apparently it’s a well-kept secret.  Makes you want visit, doesn’t it?

photo by Baron Moe

This palatial summer home was built by Amir al-Mumenin al-Mutawakkil ‘Ala Allah Rab ul-Alamin Imam Yahya bin al-Mansur Bi’llah Muhammad Hamidaddin, Imam and Commander of the Faithful.  Why don’t we call him Imam for short?

Imam was the King of Yemen from 1926 to 1948, when he was assassinated.  We don’t go too far into politics or anything here on YLW, but apparently he was a pretty fair and nice guy, and he had 14 sons, so they were probably pretty sad.

Back to Dar Al-Hajar, though, because is that a beautiful place or what?  Imam had the place constructed as a summer home, and it was constructed on an already-existing prehistoric structure.  This particular valley that Dar Al-Hajar overlooks is a fertile ancient land that is talked about in rock drawings, for Pete’s sake.  Scholars speculate that the old construction on top of the mountain where Dar Al-Hajar was built was older than recorded history.  That’s, needless to say, pretty darn cool.

The structure itself is 7 stories tall, with open courtyards and little pools everywhere.  It has 35 rooms and the stairs look like they were built into the rocks.  They probably were.  The entrance has a 700-year old tree in it.  Even though Imam had the place built in the 1930′s, it looks like a place completely out of time.  A place of beauty and wonder that I’m sure his 14 sons enjoyed – from ducking in and out of the courtyards to exploring the caves beneath (unless the caves were really used for corpses, as rumors say).

Dar Al-Hajar is open to the public now as a sort of museum, though the Yemen travel website says that its “only jewel is the building itself.”

The Bart Prince House

by Lynn.

Bart Prince is no ordinary architect.  He “builds from the inside out”, creating homes that feel good to the homeowner, and feel good to the land they are on.  He uses organic styles and interesting lot arrangement to make the most of the natural light and resources  offered by a particular lot.

He trained under Bruce Alonzo Goff – a prominent yet “idiosyncratic” architect who was heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright.  Under Goff’s tutelage he assisted with the designs of both the Pavilion of Japanese Art and the Los Angeles Museum of Art.

He designs residential homes with quite a flair.  The picture above is of his own personal house.  It’s located in Albuquerque, New Mexico and is filled with artwork and drawings.  The yard is decorated with metal dinosaurs.  The property reflects Prince’s eye for detail and his flair for the unusual.