Michael Robinson
Interior designer Andy Villasana finished four luxury homes in Beijing, flew home and found a message asking him to come to a meeting early the next morning. Jet-lagged but intrigued, he showed up and found himself listening to ideas for what was most definitely not a conventional project. A handsome widower with three kids in their teens and early twenties, the new client didn't mind investing in his surroundings — he never intended to move again. He wanted to be involved in the redesign, but he was easygoing, big on consensus and keeping it fun. Above all, he wanted to create a home so relaxed, his kids' friends would want to hang out there. "I know the way our family lives," he told Mr. Villasana. "It's not gonna be" — he picked up a discarded water bottle with two fingers and moved it to the trash in mock horror.
Now finished, the home is rustic and sleek at once, with the polish of a European villa and the easy warmth of a fraternity house. Its openness doesn't feel floaty; repetitions of exposed brick, stone and wood anchor the light-filled rooms in nature.
The owner and Mr. Villasana walk through the house, reminiscing.
"This is my favorite spot," Mr. Villasana says, gesturing to the dining room. The ceiling shimmers with bits of recycled paper, each one silver-leafed. They're reflected softly in the Holly Hunt mirror and the glossy wood of the 15-foot table. "When they saw the wallcovering, the wallpaper hangers kind of scratched their heads; it's not the kind of thing they usually hang," he grins. "I told them to throw out all the rules."
"The entrance to the room was kind of narrow," the owner recalls. "We blew that out and opened it up." He grins. "I get a little claustrophobic.
"The Switzer licorice family built the home," he continues, pointing out the foyer and the white staircase with dark wood handrails, original to the house. Paul Doerner, principal of The Lawrence Group, oversaw the architectural alterations. For the interior, Mr. Villasana chose a contemporary damask wallcovering, charcoal gray tone-on-tone, for drama. "As far as a wow factor, when that went up ..." The owner shakes his head in awe.
He walks toward what used to be the living room ("We're not living-room people") and is now a study, with a rough, almost primitive wood desk supporting a sleek black computer, and a pine floor reclaimed from an 1870 rice mill. Past the study is his bedroom, with faded gray barn doors behind his bed and a stacked-stone freestanding fireplace between the bedroom and the dressing area. Bits of glass sparkle in the hearth, and votive candles rest on ledges made by uneven stone.
The ceiling beams were modeled after the ones at Our Lady of Lourdes Church. A solid marble tub waits on the other side of the fireplace ("We had to go back in and beef up the trestles underneath," the owner says). A white onyx vanity curves around the back wall and is lit from below; mirrors are suspended over the windows.
In the kitchen, the Ann Sacks glass tile inside the Eden stone archway that frames the range was a bit of a shock for the owner, who's a touch colorblind and found the intense blue-green startling. "I thought I was getting fired that day," Mr. Villasana teases.
"I walked in and hated it," his client admits. "But over time, it flipped, and everybody came to like it." Everybody? "I'm really into consensus. We might be looking at something, and the plumber will walk in, and I'll want his opinion."
"And then when we started having meetings, some of the workers started hovering," Mr. Villasana recalls, "because they liked being involved! When we finished, he had a big open house for everyone who worked on the project."
"I'd committed that we were going to host the family Christmas party," explains the owner, "so the pressure was on." Mr. Villasana started ordering furniture in late August and crossed his fingers; he was hanging garland on the staircase the day the flooring guys came to apply the final coat of varnish. They told him to take it down. "Oh no," he said. If a bit of pine needle got stuck, it would only add nostalgia ...
Upstairs, the kids got to call the shots on their own bedrooms "until they went over budget," their dad says. The additional four guest bedrooms each have a distinct mood. The lower level — almost didn't happen. "It was musty and dungeony and cold," the owner says, "and we thought about not even finishing it. Then we decided to go more industrial-loft." The mood works as you'd expect it to for the home theater, with its rear-projector Blu-ray technology, and the workout room, with its rubber floors, high-tech AV system and steel-bladed ceiling fans — but it also works for the wine room, which originally was going to have a predictable "French castle" look. Instead, Mr. Villasana created "our vision of a 21st-century wine room." Divided by custom mahogany racks, the bottles are backlit against Eden stone walls; he added tiles that look like riveted stainless steel, a colored honeycomb light panel and glass subway tile on the barrel-vaulted ceiling.
Everything came together in mid-December, and the easygoing celebrations began.
