Steel Tree House by Joel Sherman

It was a windfall for architect Joel Sherman of jls design when a client hired him to design a residence outside the vernacular in the Lake Tahoe area.

Sherman, who has spent quite a bit of vacation time in the area, describes the local architecture as predominately composed of wood cabins with a 'bear-moose-fish- motif.'

"So often people are stuck on a fabricated nostalgia," says Sherman, "and the end result is a fake façade attached to a vanilla box."

With the construction of the Stal Tre Hus (steel tree house) in the midst of a development of 6,000 residences, the architect and his client set out to prove that it is possible to create Modern design that fits into the landscape in this high-end residential market.

The narrow lot, which measures 55 by120 feet, drops away substantially at one end.

Rather than fight the natural contours of the site, Sherman used this downward slope as a major design element.

"All too often people fall in love with the natural environment and then cut down the trees and change the surroundings," the architect laments.

Instead of razing trees or excavating the mountain, Sherman created a plan where vertical plaster towers step down into the lot, supporting the bulk of the residence that is suspended high in the canopy of surrounding trees.

The largest portion of the 2,500-