The World's Most Extraordinary Homes

I've been picked up from airports in taxis before,

but never, never had to go to a jetty to be picked up by a boat.

He's Piers Taylor, an award-winning architect.

This building is so tactile and just rich, materially.

-Whoo-hoo! -

And she's Caroline Quentin,

acclaimed actress and passionate property developer.

Oh, I've been expecting you, Mr. Bond.

We've been given the keys

to some of the most incredible houses in the world.

-It's chockful of surprises, isn't it? -

To discover the design innovation, passion and endurance needed

to transform architectural vision into an extraordinary home.

If this was Hollywood, I'd be snogging you now.

Together, we'll be travelling the globe.

Look down there.

-I would, but I'm trying not to kill us. -You look ahead.

Meeting the architects and owners who have taken on the challenge

of building unconventional homes in demanding locations.

Just another day on the wing of a 747.

Whether it's navigating the logistics of constructing a house

on top of a remote mountain...

Why would you build a house where you can only get there by cable car?

Negotiating the ancient trees of a fragile forest...

You never see a building this close to the trees.

That's six inches away.

Having a sea view

whilst perched on the edge of a dramatic coastal shoreline...

I'd love to know how you actually built this

on what appears to be a sort of vertical cliff face.

Or excavating the earth to build a home deep underground.

There is always a moment when you feel fear.

Nature is never to come back the same way.

No one had ever built something like this before.

It's a tightrope you walk. It can go spectacularly wrong.

Soaring high above sea level, remote mountain living

offers peace, tranquility and stunning vistas.

You don't come across views like that more than once in a lifetime.

It is somewhere that, once seen, it would never be forgotten.

But building a home at altitude exposed to the elements,

often with no running water or even roads,

is an endurance test only the bravest take on.

How on earth did you get this house up a mountain?

Piers and I will be traveling from the Southern Alps of New Zealand

to the peaks of the Swiss Alps.

I mean, this is a building that you need to be able to batten down the hatches of.

It's an antidote as well to the frilly "oompah" houses

-all around it, isn't it? -Yeah.

And from the heat of the desert ranges of Arizona

to the coastal mountains of California,

discovering what it takes to design, build and live

in the world's most extraordinary mountain homes.

At any point did you think,

"I've made a terrible mistake here, I've employed a madman"?

-I did. -Did you? Yeah. Did you?

-Did you? - At which point?

-Uh, when it was too late. -

- Yeah. -Yeah.

The first stop on our mountainside adventure

takes us to the City of Angels.

But we're not here to see the sights.

Piers and I are leaving downtown LA behind

and winding high into the Santa Monica Mountains,

where one homeowner built her dream home

from the most unthinkable reused building material.

Okay, hang on. Oh, no, that's wrong.

-So... -So we're California. We're here.

-Uh... -You're looking at Arizona, aren't you?

The woman who owns this house, built this house,

spent years looking for the right plot of land.

-She did. Fifteen years. Fifteen years. -Fifteen years.

But she did look all over the world.

All over the world, as long as it was within an hour of a city.

She obviously thinks she's found the place to be,

with views of the sea and the mountain.

- It's living the dream. - Living the dream.

The owner of our first mountainside retreat

wanted a building with feminine curves

that would sit lightly on this coastal mountain range.

So her architect looked to the skies

and found inspiration in the most unlikely of places.

The house we're going to see is a proper statement.

It's a proper statement.

And what's clever about it is that it's crazy,

but it's still, I think, architecturally really fascinating.

And when it comes to making a statement,

it doesn't get any bigger than this.

Built from the wings and tail fins of a disused Boeing 747,

this awarding-winning house is one of a kind.

-There it is. -

-You got to be happy with that, Piers. -Extraordinary.

Let's have a look at this.

Oh!

- I think we're here. -Yeah.

Are you impressed?

I think I'm awed by how beautiful it is being here.

-Yeah. Yeah. - This is so quirky.

It's lovely seeing the wings against the sky, isn't it?

-The thin edges. - It's quite--

-it's outrageous, actually. -It is, it is.

So how does an architect go about acquiring a disused Boeing 747?

Well, in the middle of the Californian desert,

there's a graveyard of retired airplanes.

Once her architect had convinced her,

Francie, a retired Mercedes-Benz dealer and the owner of this house,

spent less than $50,000 on a decommissioned Boeing 747.

Using Precision Laser Technology, the wings were then removed

and used to create the roofs of this unconventional house.

- I like being under the wing. - Me too.

- It's really comforting. -Yeah.

It's like a bird's wing in a way, isn't it?

This would also encourage the breeze across it.

You could open those windows at the back on a hot day,

because aircraft wings are designed to bring air under them.

- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. -So this would be naturally ventilated.

And actually, planes, remember,

are the best engineered things in the world.

So everything is beautifully made, beautifully put together,

incredibly durable, the best materials.

I mean, architects are obsessed by nuts and bolts and fixings...

-Yeah. -...and how things are made and...

it is a beautiful, beautiful thing,

but at the same time, it looks quite homemade, doesn't it?

It does. All the little squares.

-Yeah, surprising. -What's the metal?

Aluminum.

So little squares of aluminum just sort of riveted together?

Yeah. It would have been patched and repaired over the years,

because, you know, they're used for 40 years or something.

The concrete in this, and the metal, going up to the wing--

-that works. - It does.

I mean, it's designed so that the glass is the thing

that, by and large, touches it, so you always see the shape.

At ground level, this eccentric building blends seamlessly

into the mountainous landscape.

But, from the air, the shape of the wings is clearly visible.

There was a real risk

that pilots could confuse it for a downed plane.

So the project had to be registered and cleared

with 17 government agencies, including Homeland Security.

- I want to go on that wing now. - I think we should.

-I'm gonna leap up. -Oh, show-off.

Here we go, just another day on the wing of a 747.

- Just enjoying ourselves. -Taking flight.

-Striding out. -Yeah.

Cool.

It's quite spectacular, isn't it?

I mean, this, you know, this is incredible, really, and actually--

-it's quite bouncy here. -

Piers, stop it!

Oh!

I just think we're gonna have to get in sync.

- -

With two wings, two tail fins and a 55-acre plot to play with,

the architect was able to create a main house

and a guesthouse for the owner.

The 747 wings are the perfect curvilinear design

to float on top of the two buildings to maximize the views

while providing a roof, which requires minimal structural support.

Concrete rear supporting walls were built into the hillside

and enclosed with panoramic glass facades,

allowing light to enter the living spaces throughout the day.

The wings were then positioned on top of steel frame supports

and secured where the engines were previously mounted.

I love it outside, but Piers, let's go in.

-Let's go. -Let's go in.

Stepping inside this two-bedroom home,

you immediately get a sense of how effective the wings really are.

- It's great. - Yeah. Yeah.

It's actually almost better inside.

It reads as an abstract bit of art up there.

Yeah. Yeah.

-That is great view up there. -Lovely.

Yeah. Lovely.

Like a little mini invitation to go upstairs and see up there.

And there's more creative use of recycled plane parts.

This section of the fuselage has been turned into a hatch,

through from the study to the kitchen.

-It's nice from the back, isn't it? - Very nice.

Seeing all those rivets and so on.

Heading upstairs takes you above the wing to the master bedroom.

- Beautiful. - This is my best bit.

-Me, too, actually. -Is it?

Well, you get a view and the plane

and you're right under these two tail fins.

-Look at this. -Yeah.

- It's a set, isn't it, really. - Yeah.

It's not actually real mountains.

It's a very well-painted backdrop from a Hollywood movie.

It is, and looking out and seeing the wing at the end,

it's so surreal, isn't it?

I don't think I'd ever tire of looking at those mountains.

- Hi, hi, hi! -Caroline.

- How you doing? Good to see you. - How are you?

Lovely to meet you. Thank you so much...

After interviewing over a dozen architects,

the person Francie entrusted with building on her mountainside plot

was Californian architect and now friend, David Hertz.

-So you've been having some fun here. - We have.

Francie's brief was to create a tranquil, eco-friendly home,