Metalsmithed Spiral Tread Supports

Metalsmithed Spiral Stair Tread Supports

I am excited to share with you the magic that is happening in the building of this spiral. We are using a unique metal tread support system that is our design. This is something we’ve been waiting for the opportunity to do, and as we had hoped - the outcome is more sculptural than typical. The tread supports looked like a spine from a prehistoric being before they were erected and bolted to the center column. As is shown in the pictures, you can see Christian putting the treads on the supports for the first time. He is testing that they are level and that all the stairs are lining up correctly. He must also ensure the spiral lets you out in the right spot on the upper balcony. To build a spiral, not only must you have a vision, but you also need to remember your geometry and algebra before the magic can really happen. I love the look of the stair right now, before we add the railing. This is a sculpture in and of itself, and the rail will bring a completely different yet equally striking effect!

Phoebe Schraer

Executive Coordinator

Stairways - From France to Seattle

From France to Seattle

One Year with the Compagnons…

I am a new employee of Seattle Stair and how I wound up here has been an amazing journey, which when I began, I always hoped that I would be working with such skilled, passionate and interesting people as I have found here.

In August of 2011, I was chosen as the first American to take part in an international fellowship exchange program at the Coubertin Foundation in Saint-Rémy-les-Chevreuse, France with the Compagnons du Devoir.  My 11 months there were filled with workshop training, art, computer drafting, architectural history, mathematics and cultural events and trips.  I learned as much about a wonderful country and culture as I did about my work.

Shawn, who was has been bringing in French Compagnons for several years to work and live in Seattle, has graciously given me the opportunity to become part of the team here and I am loving every day, as I continue to learn and develop into a talented craftsman.

Nicolas Esposito - Craftsman

http://www.coubertin.fr/

http://www.afcoubertin.org/11.html

BEAUTIFUL TAHOE

BEAUTIFUL TAHOE

I have a lot of connections to Lake Tahoe.
• Framing houses there—Summer of ‘74
• Skiing with my dad—Winter of ‘76 (Squaw Valley, Heavenly Valley, Kirkwood)
• Honeymoon with Marilyn—Summer of ‘79 (still married)
• Last place I saw my dad—Late 90’s
• Buried my dad—1999

So it was with some emotion that I returned there for the first time in many years. I flew into Tahoe Valley Airport with my flight instructor on a beautiful fall day in early October. I was there to share our great story about custom stairs with area architects.

As we flew out the next morning and passed over the town of Truckee, CA it reminded me of rafting the Truckee River with my buddies at the unenlightened age of 20. Unenlightened indeed….and untrained, unguided, unhelmeted and unsafe. Only two guys overboard and we all lived to tell the story. It’s amazing we didn’t get swept out to the Pacific Ocean in the heavy spring runoff.

I will always look back fondly on the summer I spent there framing custom homes. It was a foundational building block for what I do now in custom stair design. Check out the aerial photo…….the houses I built were all in Tahoe Keys, visible on the left side of the image. Thank you Ron Triano, wherever you are.

My peak experience this trip? Dinner at Nephele’s on Ski Run Boulevard. www.nepheles.com/   I WILL be going back there again!  As soon as I land my first stair project in Tahoe.

Shawn F. Christman
President
Seattle Stair and Design

Finding Meaning in a Dusty Shop

Summer has waned and now crisp autumn mornings accompany my awakening self to work. Each year this transition invariably draws me into reflection upon my current blessings. Presently, I find myself part of a passionate group of creative collaborators, encouraged to seek the epitome of quality, and supported in my endeavors by kind, intelligent mentors. It is an honor to be daily met by persons of integrity and witness their attention to craft, perseverance, and infectious joie de vivre. In this stair shop we are playing out an old story, part of a pre-historic movement, seeking beauty through manual creation and thereby providing the tangible reality so sought after by our imaginative brothers and sisters. Placing our weight behind the plane or guiding the chisel through tough end grain with practiced precision brings each of us closer to life. How fortunate we are to suffer these dusty days of triumph.

Michael Lane -Craftsman

Jewelry for the Home

Jewelry Designer Turned Railing Designer


I am thrilled with this new stair project on Lake Sammamish. Coming from a jewelry design background, the process of designing a railing is turning out to be similar to that of designing a ring or other special piece of jewelry. The goal is to come up with a concept that adds to and enhances (as jewelry enhances the wearer) making a statement that is an expression of the home owner, accentuates the beauty that is already there, and is pleasant to look at. When I was designing jewelry I listened to what my client wanted while taking cues from her taste, her lifestyle, and what brought her happiness. For the rail design, I follow the same protocol as well as looking at her furniture taste for inspiration and listening to her desire to accent the lake that is just outside the windows behind the stair. I am incorporating ‘petals’ of glass within the design elements that are the color of the lake, and highlight certain aspects of the overall design. They are like the jewels of the rail design, similar to diamonds or sapphires in a piece of jewelry.
Phoebe Schraer
Executive Coordinator

Lighthouses: Compressing Spiral Stairs

I've always been fascinated by lighthouses, have gone out of my way in my airplane to overfly one at too low an altitude and have toured several in my travels. When PBS has a lighthouse special, I always watch it. Obviously part of the fascination comes from the amazing circular stairs inside. They are intriguing from the standpoint that many of them are a compressing spiral, meaning since the tower is often tapered, they get tighter as the spiral climbs toward the lens. I have photographed this architectural feature somewhat extensively because I found it challenging from a design standpoint. I have plans and drawings for such a stair. One "bucket list" ambition I have is to build a climbing/tapering/lighthouse style staircase for someone's home or office before I'm too old to master its complexity. –Shawn Christman, Seattle Stair

If you haven't visited the Heceta Head lighthouse in Oregon, I highly recommend it. Google this lighthouse, purported to be the most-photographed one in the US, and you'll find some gorgeous professional photography of the interior stairs.

photo from Planet Eugene.com

Seattle Stair & Design Featured in Seattle Business Article

"A fierce devotion to modern craftsmanship and classical technique keeps one Seattle company several steps ahead," reports the magazine Seattle Business. "Shawn Christman... is settled on a comfortable couch in a SoDo storefront office that’s cluttered with scale models of magnificent winding stairways and tchotchkes of exotic woods, finely finished. But for the coffee table books in French lying around, this might be Geppetto’s man cave.

He is Shawn Christman, 57, who founded and presides over Seattle Stair & Design, which is thriving in a marketplace being commodified with off-the-rack stair kits manufactured by automated offshore factories.

His list of clients is impressive—and those are just the ones he can talk about. Seattle Stair’s recent jobs include 2,000 feet of curved wooden handrail and 1,000 feet of curved paneling for the massive stairs at Seattle’s new headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It built the steel-and-glass stair structure for the Barneys New York store in Seattle and the (curved mahogany handrails for the)Y-shaped staircase at the Bellevue Hyatt. It manufactured an array of 50 Victorian, hand-turned Western red cedar columns and other architectural parts for the Grand Floridian Resort at Walt Disney World. And while Christman is mum about it (wrapped as it is in non-disclosure agreements), the company is working on (the) O.W. Ranch, and a luxury vacation-rental destination in Kula, Maui.

In addition to these large projects, Seattle Stair has built hundreds of residential stairways in the Pacific Northwest, as well as in Japan, Alaska and Hawaii, particularly on Maui.

Christman calls his designs “a balanced mix of geometry, architecture and sculpture.”

Click on blog title above to read the entire story in Seattle Business magazine. Thank you for the wonderful story Leslie Helm and Michael Hood.