Karl and Robin Lieffering’s wooden home clings to a rock above the beach near Whangarei. In fact this home is so much a part of the landscape that the rock surface has been left exposed on the interior to make up one wall of the house. Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens built what looks like a safari retreat in Johannesburg, inspired by traditional African design with round rooms and thatched roofs. The Martello Towers on the coast of Britain were built to repel the French Army during the Napoleonic wars, and now surveyor Guy Ruddy has transformed one into a cozy home.
Schloss Sommersdorf is a 26-room fairy tale castle that has been the Von Crailsheims family homestead since the mid 16th century. Francisca and Juan Forch live in an extraordinary concrete creation with unbeatable views on a beach in Chile. Lea Chapman used found objects to create a unique home in New Zealand with touches of American Wild West, Tudor England and even the South of France.
Architect Alex Michaelis spotted a great plot in London's fashionable Notting Hill district, but planning restrictions limited him from building anything higher than the 6-foot high garden wall. So Michaelis dug a 20-foot pit and built the home in the crater. Mandy and Michael Millsap enjoy a tremendous view from the deck of their South African game lodge home. Kasteel Amstenrade has been in the d'Ansembourg family for over two centuries, and the decor in the 64-plus room castle has hardly changed in that time.
Thijs and Liliane Spijker live a functioning 1839 lighthouse. The Marken Lighthouse also contains the couple's large collection of naval memorabilia. Actress Luciana Paluzzi played Fiona Volpe in the James Bond flick Thunderball. Now she lives in a stunning home in Mexico on the Costa Careyes. New Zealander Donn Groom built a house out of mud bricks and generates his own electricity from a nearby waterfall.
Danielle and Frank Sheahan turn a short, squatty lighthouse in Wales into a fun eclectic six-bedroom home. Magali Mayorga Rivas and Fernando Becker live with their young family in a unique underground home in Mexico, where the garden is on the roof of their house. Teun Van Wely's home is just 8-feet wide, and the Amsterdam house comes complete with a mythical story of its creation.
A British family built a sleek, modern home around a 19th century water tower. And atop the tower host Ruth England finds a roof garden complete with sun loungers and a hot tub, where guests can lie back and look over the countryside. An Australian woman turns three derelict water tanks into a fun-filled family home. A remarkable home in New Zealand can rotate 360 degrees at the touch of a button.
A family of French circus performers lives in a wooden dome home that rotates 360-degrees with a slight push. A house in Australia can be opened up, allowing for marvelous views of the sun setting over the plains. An 18th century banquet hall includes an ancient ice house 95 feet below the elegant home above.
Rainthorpe is an English country home filled with quite a bit of history, including the ghost of a previous owner. The Baeta home in Brazil is actually built around a massive tree. A New Zealand homeowner has fashioned most of his decor from castoff junk.
A typical British clapboard cottage is atypically placed atop a 70-foot tower. At the other end of the housing height spectrum, an Australian family beats the searing heat by burrowing underground. And it’s back in the clouds for a South African couple living in a luxurious hilltop haven.
In Mexico, visit a home in the shape of a snake and in Australia, tour a home perched on a pole.
First visit a windmill in Holland that’s still grinding corn. A young family in Mexico lives inside the belly of their whale house. Finally, down in Australia a family beats the heat in an open-air house.
Visit a lodge in the heart of South Africa where the residents have some unusual neighbor, including antelope and rhino, who drop in for a visit. A simple home in Chile was delivered on the back of a truck and goes by the equally simple name of M7. A tranquil haven of a home in New Zealand includes a huge glass conservatory filled with lush green plants.
An extraordinary Swedish home was built to organically blend into its surroundings and resembles a prehistoric creature with scaly skin walls, windows that look like shining eyes and even antennae. In Brazil, where fans are intense in their love of soccer, a mobile phone executive and his dog live in a huge red ball atop a pole. Down in Australia, an architect creates a funky twist on the tree house with a glass and steel construction.
