The multi-generational home of Antonio and Olga Giampietro, and Michael, Nara, Lucas and Elizabeth Porco.Filtered sunlight penetrates enormous, floor-to-ceiling windows at both front and rear. As a sunbeam crawls across the herringbone floor, each chevron lights up as if powered internally. As glossy white kitchen cabinets ping light in every direction, the brooding, dark marble island acts as absorbent counterpoint.
And if all of this doesn’t sound like a typical multi-generation family home, that’s because the Porcos aren’t your average family.“Well, you have to like each other,” laughs Michael Porco as he sits down on the mushroom-coloured sofa near the rear window-wall. Joining 70-year-old Mr. Porco in the filtered sunlight are three of the five people he likes enough to cohabitate with: Nara, his 62-year-old wife, and children Lucas and Elizabeth.
The only concession to the older generation, really, is an elevator, and a slightly larger bedroom suite for the two most senior members of the family. And, should the younger Mr. Porco decide he’d like to own a separate downtown residence, he’ll find a way to make that happen, just as he did here. While building a house can never really be considered a whim , this multigenerational dwelling came about due to a childhood dream: like Michael Porco had done a quarter-century before, Lucas Porco wanted to build a house.