Functionally, a set of stairs provides a necessary way of getting from one floor to the next. But when those stairs pass through a modern great room, where openness is the whole point, they become a design decision that can either work with the room or fight against it. Traditional wood stairs require framing that would close off the space. But when you go with steel, the design options open up, and so does the room.
That decision came into focus during the construction of a new home on Nantucket. Once the builder and architect determined that a steel set of monostairs fit their vision for the space, they reached out to Macy Industries to make it happen.
A Staircase for a Modern Great Room
The client, a home builder, came to Macy with architectural drawings and a clear vision for how the stairs should look in the space. What he needed was a fabrication partner to help him get there.
As a woodworker and home builder by trade, he understood construction but not steel. Much of the early conversation focused on what was possible, what materials made sense, and how the design would come together.
Because the home was on Nantucket, about 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Macy would ship the staircase rather than handle installation. That meant designing a system that the client’s crew could bolt together on site.
A Collaborative Design Process
Instead of simply taking the architect’s drawings and running with them, we worked directly with the client to talk through material selection, tubing sizes, fitment, finish, and other practical details. There were multiple phone calls and plenty of back-and-forth to make sure everyone was fully aligned before fabrication began.
Once we had the fundamentals nailed down, our team created a conceptual SolidWorks model, followed by formal shop drawings. We also shared pictures during fabrication to keep the client in the loop throughout the project.
The handrails followed a similar path. The client had originally planned on wood handrails, but after seeing the stairs installed, he decided to go with painted steel cable rails instead. Macy had already built provisions into the original design to accommodate handrails, so we were able to move straight into the design phase. After working through several iterations, including round handrails versus square posts and different top-rail options, we settled on square rails, which were cleaner to fabricate and a better visual fit for the space.
The Fabrication and Assembly Process
The monorail design featured a substantial steel tube running beneath the center of the stairs, with steel supports welded in place to hold the treads. The tube itself was roughly four by seven inches, heavy enough to keep the stairs from flexing or moving underfoot. We built the platforms from heavy angle iron, and the formed steel components were all quarter-inch. The full system consisted of four sections: a platform, a set of stairs, a larger platform, and a second set of stairs.
Our team modeled the stair components in CAD, then cut them on our plasma cutter and formed them on the press brake. The project required careful fixturing and layout to keep everything straight, plumb, and aligned, as stairs are unforgiving work. If you’re off by even a sixteenth of an inch on each of ten stairs, you’re more than half an inch off at the end—and then nothing fits. To make sure that didn’t happen, we assembled the full monostair system in our shop before shipment to verify dimensions and fit.
After fabrication, we had the components painted black to create the visual contrast the client was looking for. The client’s team would later add finished oak treads to complete the look.
From Our Shop Floor to a New Nantucket Home
With fabrication complete, we custom-built a crate and packaged everything with foam and shipping materials for the ferry ride to Nantucket. The client’s crew handled installation from there.
The response was immediate. The client reached out as soon as the stairs were installed, thrilled with the result. The building inspector was just as impressed, calling the stairs “unbelievable” after seeing them.
For our shop, this was the kind of project that gets everyone talking. The stairs were big and visible enough that the whole team knew they were being built, and hearing the client’s reaction after installation was a point of pride across the floor.
If you have a residential or commercial project that calls for custom steel fabrication, we’d love to talk through your ideas. Reach out to our team to get started.