a house of many depths.
deep beneath the tide line, where pressure shapes everything into something patient and enduring, the house begins. its walls are coral and compressed sand, mortared with salt. every surface remembers the ocean.
here the rooms breathe slowly — expanding and contracting with currents you can almost feel. the architecture is not built; it is grown. columns of living stone support ceilings that ripple with reflected light.
floor one: where the house meets the sea
halfway up, the water gives way to wood. the walls here are planked with storm-felled pine, each board slightly bowed and bearing the memory of wind. a fire crackles in the hearth — the first warmth since the ocean floor.
this is where the house becomes shelter in earnest. beams overhead carry the weight of meadow and summit. the wood groans softly when the mountain shifts, a sound like breathing.
floor three: where warmth begins
above the treeline, the house opens like a flower. walls fall away and the rooms spill into meadow grass. sunlight — actual sunlight, after all those fathoms — pours in through windows that are just holes in the mountain.
wildflowers push through the floorboards. the ceiling is sky. everything up here is lighter: the air, the colors, the sound of wind replacing the sound of water.
floor four: where the house forgets it is a house