Projects
Willow House Library and Stair Hall
By Adrian Mercer · April 18, 2026
A skylit library and stair hall in white oak — measured around 2,400 books and built to be read in.
The Willow House clients arrived with 2,400 books, a dog who sleeps against warm timber, and a dark stair hall they avoided after sunset. We measured every shelf run around the collection itself — tall art books low where weight belongs, paperbacks at hand height — then opened the stairwell with a skylit oak lining that borrows daylight for both floors.
White oak throughout, rift-sawn for calm grain on the shelves and plain-sawn for figure on the stair wall. Shelves are adjustable on brass pins, the window seat lifts for blanket storage, and every tread was cut from a single flitch so the grain climbs the stair in order. Finish is hardwax-oil, renewed in an afternoon whenever life marks it.
A library should be measured in books first and metres second.
Fitted in nine days across two visits, the room now holds morning coffee, evening reading and the whole collection with space left for the next decade. Lake Waramaug, Connecticut · 2024 · white oak, brass, linen light.
