CREDIT: Greg Southam, Canwest News Service The staircase has the appearance of floating, unsupported, up to the second storey of the unusual house. A Plexiglas wall will prevent accidents.

CREDIT: Greg Southam, Canwest News Service Michael Cormier shows off his thoroughly modern house set among the stately homes of an older area of Edmonton.

CREDIT: Greg Southam, Canwest News Service In the kitchen, the seats at the breakfast bar are suspended from the ceiling. Pale green cabinets line the room, but the cabinets on the left disguise a door to a secret passage.

CREDIT: Greg Southam, Canwest News Service Attached to the master bedroom is a bathroom with a glassed-in shower and a free-standing tub.

CREDIT: Greg Southam, Canwest News Service Attached to the master bedroom is a bathroom with a glassed-in shower and a free-standing tub.

There's a certain magic to the house that Michael Cormier built in Edmonton's historic Highlands area.

Its boxy shape and flat roof contrast sharply with the softer lines of neighbouring homes, many of which have been standing on the quiet street for nearly a century.

With their gingerbread trim and curling cornices, the aged dwellings are like grand dames, exuding an air of timeless beauty.

Cormier's house is the handsome, young scalla-wag who has come to crash the old ladies' tea party.

"I'd like to think what I've designed is artistic," says Cormier. "When I originally started the design with an architect, I couldn't get across what I was trying to do so ... I taught myself how to design a home.

"It was a lot of nights and long hours and playing around with shapes and spaces."

Cormier's efforts have paid off to enchanting effect. Visitors to the showhome step into a world where staircases float and secret rooms are artfully concealed behind cabinets and walls.

"I wanted to do something different," Cormier says. "I had to walk to the beat of my own drum."

Listening to his inner voice led Cormier to create his company, Alkme Design. The name is a play on the word, alchemy, and was inspired by one of his favourite books, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.

Subtitled A Fable About Following Your Dreams, the novel spurred Cormier to do just that.

"I couldn't find a reason why not," he says of his decisions to incorporate such features as bar stools that hang from the ceiling on airplane wire and a fireplace that hovers slightly above the living area's hardwood floor.

Nor could he deny the urge to create a Harry Potter room behind a false wall in the finished basement and a hidden mud room and powder room concealed by what appears to be a bank of cupboards in the kitchen.

His creativity has culminated in touches of whimsy, such as the stainless steel grill intertwined with hundreds of tiny white lights suspended from the living area ceiling.

"I needed to light the living room and I didn't want to go with a regular pot system, so you've got an ambient light. It warms up the space."

The dining room is round, which Cormier says makes for better conversation.

"I did want to soften it, not make it all squares, and when you're in the circle it heightens the voices."

The staircase to the second level appears to hang in mid-air behind a glass wall that separates it from the open design main floor.

"The floating elements I love," says Cormier. "The stairs are something I had in my head. So I dreamed this up and my goodness, what a ton of time and energy, but I'm so very happy how it turned out."

The house abounds with features that please the eye and soothe the soul.

The master bedroom ensuite, with free-standing soaker tub and glass shower, is clad in tile the shade of new bamboo shoots.

In the powder room, water from a tap splashes over a glass disc into the vessel sink.

There's a rooftop patio that offers sweeping views of the neighbourhood and a theatre room where viewers can lose themselves in movies projected onto a nine-foot screen.

In the kitchen, pot lights hover over countertops made of concrete, seashell and glass, and the backsplash glitters in Egyptian glass.

The room's many cupboards are tinted a soft tea green. "The home is based on the principle of the Amazon," Cormier says. "Very green, lush.

"The floors are rosewood, so I gave it that very tropical Brazilian feel and I needed a green element to complement that and that's where the cabinets came from.

While this is Cormier's first homebuilding project, he has some impressive renovations under his belt. One is located next door to the showhome. From the outside, the house remains true to its 1918 roots.

Inside is a different matter. Cormier gutted it and opened up living spaces. He installed a moon gate -- a large piece of metal curved into a circle shape -- in the entryway to the living room

It was only a matter of time before he made the leap into building. And when it comes to design and construction, he's determined to follow his own unconventional path.

"I have found that you don't necessarily have to do things the way they are," he says. "Do we have to have stairs this way? Do we have to have closets this way?

"Some of it is true and time tested but others, it's just because we get into a funk. So for me I wanted to try and look at it differently."

For more information, visit: www.alkmedesign.com.