
Home Office in a Water Tower

Christina Schmidhoffer
Architect Geoffrey Holton was to evaluate a 1950s ranch house for the possibility of adding a home office. Instead, he ended up turning their 1920 water tower― built when the property was part of a ranch―into the needed work space.
“The first time I saw it, it was very close to falling down, but I thought it was fantastic,” says Holton. “It was like a little piece of history on a typical suburban lot.”
First, the practical: Builders stabilized the tower and added flashing to make it waterproof. Next, they restored the windows and added a ring of transomlike windows at the base of the tower.