Hollen designed the $5,000 gate 15 years ago and recently added the steely maple leaves on top ($1,800) and along an adjacent fence ($3,500) which reference Hammett’s backyard Chinese maples.

Good designers have a way of fashioning surprises from familiar materials. Here's three new projects--all of which elevate metal into something wonderfully strange--that made us sit up.

A few years ago, Racicky purchased a computer numerical control table and began experimenting with metal designs. Though he attended college for welding, he said he didn’t receive that kind of ...