6 homes with spiritual design elements
Charlestown, Rhode Island. Architect Soheil Tavakoli drew on Native American and Persian design for this three-bedroom home set on 27 wooded acres. The house, crafted with stone, glass, tiles, and seven kinds of wood, was built to create a flow between rooms and from inside to outdoors, and the main room's ceiling is a 72-facet skylit Persian dome.
The grounds include tea and bath houses, four water features, and a yoga deck. $5,999,999. William Dumke, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, (914) 806-1042.
Rockport, Maine. Its conversion from an 1856 Baptist church gave this three-bedroom home hardwood floors, modern bathrooms, a chef's kitchen, a dining room, and a library. Original features include 20-foot ceilings; oversize windows; the intact church nave with baptismal font, stained-glass windows, altar, and organ; and a bell tower with 360-degree views of the village and Rockport Harbor.
Outside are a garden patio, a lawn, trees, and vegetable beds. $1,395,000. Alex Cohen, Camden Real Estate, (207) 691-2424.
Santa Fe. The Tierra Sagrada estate lies in the Pojoaque Valley between sacred Native American badlands and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, 20 minutes from Santa Fe. The five-bedroom main house shows Asian and Moroccan spiritual and artistic influences in its sculptures, carved trim, stained-glass windows, organic contours, log-beamed ceilings, and colored tilework.
The 17.2-acre property includes two guesthouses, a retreat building, an aviary, a vineyard, landscaped water features, and a koi pond. $5,550,000. Gary Bobolsky, Sotheby's International Realty, (505) 470-0927.
Baiting Hollow, New York. The open plan of architect Steven H. Chang's five-bedroom "House of Windows" incorporates special spaces for quiet contemplation, including a tearoom. Designed to leave the smallest possible carbon footprint, it has solar panels for heat and electricity and features ipe-wood siding, artisan-made doors and niches, and bamboo floors.
The 1.27-acre lot on Long Island Sound features lawns, specimen trees, flower gardens, a pool, and access to a white-sand beach. $1,725,000. Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty, (631) 298-4130.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Ecoheal is a residence and retreat with a three-bedroom house, a healing center, and a meditation hut. The environmentally sustainable buildings are made of wetted clay and compressed straw, trimmed inside with pine, cedar, oak, and walnut from trees milled on site, and have living roofs, solar heating, and structural cooling.
The 1.5-acre wooded grounds are next to a pond and community walking trails and minutes from Duke University. $1,100,000. Hodge & Kittrell/Sotheby's International Realty, (919) 800-0799.
Wray, Colorado. When this former church, built in 1940, was converted to a dual residence in 2014, many original details were preserved, including the steeple, arched windows, and sanctuary. The main-floor apartment has a bedroom with walk-in closet, kitchen, living-dining room, and laundry; the basement apartment has two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living-dining room; both apartments have an extra half-bathroom.
The home is flanked by mature trees and grassy yards, and is near downtown. $199,000. Ginger Brophy, Brophy Realty, (970) 630-0066.
This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.
More stories from theweek.com
Does it matter if Donald Trump never concedes?
Trump will reportedly start reading obituaries of dead people who almost certainly didn't vote
Trump might be starting to come to terms with having lost 2020 — by setting his sights on 2024
