A river view, now less risky, completes the picture

On a bright July day, the vista evokes gasps from visitors to this property in Lumberville, Bucks County. To the southeast is the Delaware River, which on this particular morning is blue and clear.

From the driveway, on 10-foot-high stilts surrounded by trees, you see a dwelling that looks like a giraffe standing tall on thin legs. Modest in appearance, the structure is made of stucco and cedar, and seems to blend in with its woody surroundings.

It belongs to Monika Hemmers and Stephen Heimann of Chestnut Hill, who built the house to replace a cottage they bought in 2009 that was flooded by successive storms that saw the Delaware overran its banks.

"Hurricane Lee [in 2011] was the last straw," Heimann says.

"You must be crazy," his wife told him when Heimann suggested replacing the house with one that could withstand the river's raging waters each year.

Nevertheless, the couple contacted architect Jean McCourbey, an associate with Runyan & Associates in Philadelphia, and presented their dilemma.

They loved the house with the view, they said. Its location in Solebury Township suited Heimann, who commuted several days a week as a lawyer with Verizon; the couple stayed in the house while he worked in New Jersey. (Their three adult children are no longer living at home.)

But it was a less pleasing view - that of their cottage's living room under three feet of water and the stairway collapsed - that prompted them to go ahead with a design plan that took two years, two architects, and several engineers to accomplish. The work was finished in 2013.

"What made the process take so long was that we needed any number of variances," Heimann says. "If we had just built in the footprint of the old house, it wouldn't have been a problem."

These days, you enter up one of two stairways, which were mandated by local ordinances, in case any other flooding should arise here.

Go past the area under the overhang, which is large enough for two large cars, to access the great room with its wall of glass windows.

The space seems greater than 1,800 square feet, probably because of the sparse use of furniture. A gleaming wood dining table on one side and a seating arrangement on the other all seem to face the river view.

In a corner sits a wood-burning Morso stove. It helps heat the room in colder weather, supplementing the electric heating system.

Light-violet walls opposite the windows are full of photos of the couple's children and colorful paintings Hemmers has acquired, many done by her friends.

McCourbey, the project manager for the Runyan firm, says the house has a modern design with a simple open plan that was requested by the couple, along with a shed roof.

Two bedrooms at either side of the great room lead to privacy, as do pocket doors, she says. A master bedroom faces the river; a guest room is situated on the other side.

"It is basically a wooden box anchored by steel pipes," McCourbey says.

The project's major expense was accomplished by a team led by engineer Ann Rothman - a "complicated" system of two levels of pipes holding the house in place.

One is a set of 6-inch pipes attached to H-shaped steel pipes going into the ground about 14 feet deep.

"The pipes anchor the house and are attached to bedrock," she said.

All in all, there are about 39 pipes.

The architecture firm's founder, Stanley Runyan, said the design included solutions to particular problems.

In addition to the flood-prone river, there was the lack of gas for use in the area, so electricity had to be used for heating, cooking, and all energy.

"We enclosed the house in five inches of foam, and the windows are three-pane glass to cut down on energy costs," he says.

Runyan points out that one of the highlights of the design - one the homeowners use constantly - is the deck that opens from the great room and is about 50 feet from the rocky river shoreline underneath, for another very dramatic view.

"It is so high that there had to be a fence surrounding that part of the deck, so no one would fall," Runyan says.

Heimann recently retired, and the couple no longer stay in the cottage to ease his commute.

But they still use their second home as a recreation base for biking, hiking and entertaining.