April 24, 2024
Own the Home of the Man Who Designed the MOS Musical Stairs

Chris Janney’s function brings together architecture, mild, and seem, and he tested out some of his models on his possess Lexington home.


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Pics by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

75 Kendall Road, Lexington
Price tag: $2,500,000
Dimension: 6,348 sq. ft
Bedrooms: 5
Loos: 4 full, 1 partial

You’ve in all probability encountered Christopher Janney’s do the job prior to if you’ve been to the Museum of Science. Ever run up and down the musical stairs there, generating a cacophony of appears? Which is his operate. Janney is an MIT- and Princeton-educated architect and jazz musician who combines his two parts of abilities into his style function. The consequence is style and design do the job that brings together gentle, sound, and shade for spaces that experience like art.

Janney also tests out most of his design and style operate in Lexington dwelling, where he’s lived considering the fact that 1989. But he didn’t just restrict his exploration to pen and paper sketches carried out in his greenhouse studio. He tried out out his thoughts on the dwelling by itself. More than the final 3 decades, he’s formed the home: rebuilding the greenhouses in the again, connecting the garage to the household, incorporating a second story, and creating a studio and deck. With each individual addition, he extra his very own contact, experimenting with curved designs and glass he incorporated into his other work. In executing so, he remodeled this 1929 farmhouse into a whimsical composition that calls to thoughts his Children’s Museum style function.

In all places you transform listed here, there are shocking design and style factors: Coloured glass, geometric cutouts, glass partitions, and curvilinear traces make traditional house areas like the kitchen or the living space fully 1-of-a-kind. Minimal information like glass-encased rooms shaped like a nautilus or round cutouts by the kitchen area cabinets incorporate a futuristic vibe to the residence, although an abundance of hardwoods and windows retain the area mild and ethereal.

In addition to owning 5 bedrooms (together with a key suite with custom made built-ins and a round window giving sights of the 1.5 acre home and nearby conservation land), this household also has a subterranean audio studio. Head down the spiral staircase (surrounded by crimson glass) to the soundproof space in which Janney himself crafted tunes. There is also two spacious greenhouses out back (4,000 sq. toes and 2,500 square ft) that are open up to even extra works by using, like serving as an in-law condominium. Janney himself employs them as a store/storage area and as a style studio wherever he builds his prototypes. “I get a very good notion at two in the early morning, I can go out and at minimum sketch it out and develop it. (Then I) go again to sleep, and wake up to truth. I still have some thing I can look at,” he states. “So it’s been great for that.”

Janney now programs to split his time in between New York Metropolis and Los Angeles, in which his grownup young children reside and get the job done as a musician and a movie editor (“I like to feel the property and the house motivated their occupations,” he quips). In undertaking so, he’ll want to say goodbye to his residence, opening the door for one more spouse and children who hopefully sees the similar possibility in the residence that he did. “I really do not consider the house is for everybody, but I consider it’s the suitable spot for the ideal sort of loved ones,” he suggests. “It is my 3rd baby. I want to let it go out in the entire world and be what it needs to be.”

For extra data, make contact with Donna Marcantonio, Petrowsky Jones Team of Compass, 75kendall.com.

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Pictures by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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Photographs by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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Photos by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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Pictures by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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Shots by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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Pics by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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Photographs by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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Photographs by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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Photographs by Justin and Victoria Anfuso of Anfuso Imaging

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