Design Detail: A Daring Cantilevered Bedroom Suite

Welcome to Design Details, where we look at a standout project feature and explore what it took to make it special. 

The Detail:

In a custom home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina, an art gallery and primary suite project 20 feet beyond a stone base, supported by 50-foot steel I-beams. The cantilevered feature includes a long glass-fronted corridor that sits above a water feature and a primary suite at the distant end that extends the bedroom out into the tree canopy and toward the mountain views.

The Vision:

The owners wanted a primary suite that could function as a dramatic architectural element, embodying the home's blend of art and modernist design. The challenge was separating the retreat experience from the rest of the house without losing connection to the wooded site. The cantilever became the solution, pulling the suite outward rather than building up or back. 

The Challenge:

The move introduced structural and site challenges. The house is set into a hillside, so the cantilever had to carry both vertical loads and lateral weight without overloading the stone base.

The water feature designed to flow beneath it added another layer of complexity, introducing moisture, drainage, and long-term durability concerns for the structure above.

The Build:

The terrain itself wasn't much of a challenge. "It's nothing we haven't done before," says Kevin Reed, owner of Bluestone Construction, the North Carolina luxury builder on the project. "We've built on a lot steeper properties." Reed says the team flew drones out on the property to show the homeowners the 270-degree views they would get once the structure was built. 

The cantilever, however, required close collaboration among the architect, engineers, and construction team. Fifty-foot steel I-beams were craned into place and threaded through a three-foot-thick stone wall, extending deep into the hillside to carry the load and hold the cantilever tight. 

But it wasn't a set-it-and-done process. Once the subfloor was down and walls were framed, the cantilever started behaving like a tuning fork, Reed explains, with footsteps creating vibrations across the entire structure.

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"If you were standing there and somebody else walked out, you could tell without even seeing them," Reed says. "You could feel the vibration." 

The team brought in a structural consultant who recommended triangular stiffener braces on the underside of the beams.

"It completely went away," says Reed. "We were pretty nervous for a while, but the solution was pretty easy, actually."

The HVAC routing was the other significant challenge; heating and air conditioning ducts had to be run from underneath all the way to the far end of the suite.

Inside, detailing was kept tight, with flush window returns, minimal baseboards, and few transitions between materials.  

The oversized windows naturally raised concerns about thermal comfort and privacy, addressed with high-performance glass to mitigate heat gain, and operable windows and strategic shading to provide natural ventilation.

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The entire process required careful sequencing of trades to ensure that the steel, stone, and glazing all worked in harmony.

The Outcome:

While the vertical I-beams are concealed inside a stone wall, the team chose to expose the beams on the cantilevered portion itself, to express the modernist vision for the home and the idea of strength that it took to build the feature. 

The suite's only concession was a motorized TV that drops from the ceiling. But it retracts fully into the ceiling when not in use, leaving the views and the sensation of floating in the treetops unobstructed, the defining detail of the home now known as Kanuga Overlook.

This home was awarded Silver for Best Design Detail in The Best in American Living Awards (BALA) 2025, announced at the International Builders' Show in February.