The Greeks and Romans believed the hearth was the
center of the home, the ���focus,��� which literally means
���fire.��� Lobrano���s focus for this house is an outdoor
hearth with a chimney that towers like an obelisk. This
monolithic fireplace, in the same golden stone of which
the house is constructed, is magnificent in its plainness,
the plainness not of modernist icons, but of the grain silos which inspired Le Corbusier. A short flight of stone
steps leads up to this Vestal hearth. Above the mantelpiece is a jovial sunburst relief, a tribute to the gods and
elements which reappear throughout the house. In front
of the hearth is a rough, massive altar-like table of stone
and cement.
HYLAND
