The funny thing about a staircase, notes Naperville-based builder John Wozniak of J. Lawrence Homes, is people don’t necessarily buy a home because of it, “but they will pass on a home with a bad staircase design.”
The residential staircase has morphed from a practical path to a tricky tango that home builders do not take for granted. The staircase’s location, design, materials and extras all matter to the buyer, and therefore, to the builder.
Thanks to the predominance of the center-hall Colonial in today’s new-home market, the staircase that feeds the foyer still rules.
Meanwhile, more buyers want their staircases out of the public eye, say builders. “It makes a lot of sense to have the staircase feed into the kitchen or family room, as opposed to the foyer,” says Wozniak. “That’s where homeowners spend most of their time.”
In houses that have more than 4,000 square feet, buyers want a foyer staircase and a second, simpler one, says Jeff Eichorn, associate principal of Orren Pickell Designers & Builders in Lincolnshire. “The rear one is for the family, while the one in the foyer is more of a showcase.”
A compromise, suggests David Lautenbach of Roseland Stair Works Inc. in Orland Park, is the T-shaped staircase that feeds both the foyer and the family room.
Even in production homes, the straight-run staircase is disappearing in favor of L- or U-shaped versions. Some semi-custom builders have signature designs, such as Toll Brothers’ butterfly staircase, which sends two curved flights into the foyer from a second-floor landing.
For lovers of contemporary houses, an open-tread staircase combines drama and simplicity. This worked for Sondra Epstein’s Michigan City, Ind., vacation home, where designer Mitchell Putlack and architect David Woodhouse, both of Chicago, created a staircase with wooden treads and sides. Hidden lights keep the staircase safe at night for the Epstein’s visiting grandchildren and “granddog,” notes Epstein. During the day, though, a wall behind the staircase provides a view of the dunes.
While building codes in Michigan City allow open treads, most Chicago-area towns essentially prohibit them by saying the maximum stair opening allowed is four inches.
Buffalo Grove-based builder Jeff Samuels, though, met code for a Skokie buyer in 2008 by building four-inch-thick wooden treads and limiting the open space between them to four inches. Combined, the rise met code but offers an open floating-stair look.
For Craftsman-style houses, a wooden curb, typically about 12 inches high, below the row of balusters is hot, reports Bill Wells, vice president of Lake Shore Stair Co. in Libertyville. “It gives it a heavier look, which works in these houses,” he says.
For houses with transitional designs, Wells points to the stack-box staircase. Although it has a hidden support, each tread appears to be a wooden box attached to the stair wall.
At the top of the price ladder, the view of the staircase from above or below is key. Curved, three-story designs create works of art and are often topped by chandeliers or unusual ceiling treatments.
Most staircases in production houses have oak banisters, painted-wood balusters and carpeted treads. Some builders, like Town and Country Homes, jazz it up by using a wooden first step that matches the foyer flooring.
Among semi-custom and custom houses, though, wooden treads and banisters, plus wrought-iron balusters are common. “There are so many types of [factory-built] iron balusters now, you don’t have to go custom anymore to find what you want,” says Lautenbach.
This combination reigns at the Regents Row rowhouses in Lake Forest, where Windward Builders offers oak treads/banisters and iron balusters, but many buyers upgrade the wood to rift and quarter sawn oak or Brazilian cherry wood.
Although they can cost more, some buyers prefer copper- or bronze-finished balusters to match their lighting fixtures and hardware, report the builders.
Pickell’s clients with contemporary houses choose steel cables or glass panels instead of balusters. Lautenbach is seeing more buyers achieve this industrial look with stainless-steel balusters.
For Craftsman-style houses, stairways are usually all wood. Pam Katz of Deerfield chose oak treads and banisters stained a dark ebony. Her painted-white grid balusters are a sharp contrast to the dark treads, giving her the “arts-and-crafts, but fresh” look she wanted. Thanks to her architect, Morgante-Wilson Architects Ltd. in Evanston, she says, her staircase is “functional art.”
For buyers who want wooden treads but worry about slipping, Lake Shore Stair Co. offers a solution: a routed-in pattern of tiny diamonds that provides traction.
Like the carpenters who built the pre-war houses, some of today’s builders dress their staircases with bookcases, wainscoting, window seats or windows.
Architect Bill Styczynski and his wife, Kerry, chose all of the above when they built their Downers Grove house in 2007. The staircase’s mahogany wood echoes the house’s floors for a cohesive look and provides the durability needed for the couple’s children and Siberian huskies.
“It’s a warm, cozy look,” says Kerry. “When our house was on a tour, people said, ‘This is homey. I could live here.'”
Other buyers plug art niches into their staircases, although scant builders offer them.
Rare is the homebuyer whose eyes are not bigger than his budget, and the staircase accounts for much of it. So contractors offer a few tips for getting champagne stairs at beer prices.
Katz saved a bundle, she says, by choosing wooden treads for the flight that feeds into the foyer, but less-costly carpeted treads on the switchback flight that is not as visible. The carpeting is the same color as the wooden treads.
One builder in a recent Naperville home tour mimicked more expensive wrought-iron balusters with wooden balusters that he painted black.
“Using a trio of wood baluster designs doesn’t cost much more than using the same design, but gives you a custom look,” suggests Wells.
“Thanks to computerized machines, we can create designs easily that used to be custom-made,” adds Lautenbach. “If you haven’t looked at stair products for a while, you’ll be surprised at the ‘custom’ pieces you can get without paying custom prices.”
