Features: The Ultimate Philadelphia Dream House

THE BATHROOM

 It started with a crazy idea—a freestanding vanity. Then the Chester County homeowners wanted something even crazier—to have two sinks on it that face each other. Architect Marc Pinard took it to the extreme, using the vanity as the room’s focal point. Still, he didn’t intend for it to overpower the space, to take away from the clean, sparse, uncluttered look his clients were after. “I wanted to let the rest of the room happen around it,” Pinard explains. What happened around it was a completely glass-enclosed marble shower that doubles as a steam room, a Japanese soaking tub that looks out into the woods surrounding the house, and a heated floor. In fact, the whole house has a radiant floor system, since the owners like to walk around in their bare feet.

Do-It-Yourself: Consider using wood as an artistic element, says Pinard. Instead of a lot of moldings that would typically add detail, let the flat surface of a natural piece of wood—showing off the grain—become a focal point, as the beechwood does in this master bath. —V.G.

Pinard Architects, 254 West Walnut Lane, Germantown, 215-844-0511; pinardarchitects.com.