Creative converted homes
By Colleen Kane | CNBC.com
This is the third-annual collection of residences that were created from buildings that formerly served other purposes. The visionaries who dreamed up and created these homes started off with disused and neglected buildings and transformed them into unusual habitations designed for modern lifestyles.
Some categories of buildings are favorites when it comes to adaptive reuse. Other homes in this collection were made from unexpected structures. Whatever their starting points, the resulting examples of adaptive reuse range from simple and minimal or rustic to contemporary.
Locals call it Tracy Island, for its resemblance to the island base in the 1960s TV series "Thunderbirds," according to an article in This is Kent, but the Lime Works is a 1930s modernist former water-softening treatment plant owned by an antiques shop owner and his partner. This far-out facility shut down in 1942, and in the 1960s the water board planted poplars to hide it as it was considered an eyesore, reports the Sunday Times.
The owners bought the derelict plant in 2005 and began transforming it into a spacious residence with four floors of living space connected by spiral staircases (with the master suite taking up the whole fourth floor), floor-to-ceiling windows, a movie theater and gym, two kitchens, a rooftop swimming pool and another roof terrace, and hilltop views of the surrounding countryside. When the pair was 90 percent finished with the transformation, they decided The Lime Works was too big, and it's listed it with Savills for approximately $4,756,000, down from the January 2012 asking price of approximately $6,046,000.
more at link:
http://homes.yahoo.com/news/creative-converted-homes-191605942.html
