There wasn’t enough room for a conventional stairway to the roof deck, so Pratt chose an industrial model from Lapeyre Stair (www.lapeyrestair.com), a New Orleans–based manufacturer. Its alter-nating tread design makes walking up a cinch—even for Beck’s Lab mix, Little Bear. Beck recalls that when he told the company he wanted a stairway for his home, they weren’t interested in selling
to him. But he persevered and called back the next day and said he needed it for
his warehouse, and the order went right through. Beck became accustomed to the difficulty of categorizing the building as either residential or commercial: Inspectors treated it as a home for some parts of the building code and as a workplace for others.