PRETTY SMART
By Steve Blount
Photographs: Everett & Soulé
Heathrow smart house has brains and beauty.
Even when a house has good bones – as with the Heathrow home of Sam and Louann Thornton – bringing a 20th century dwelling into the 21st century means adding technological muscle, and extra skeleton, too.
“The goal for the Thorntons was to stay in their home,” says Victor Farina of Farina & Sons, the general contractor for the remodel. “They loved the house and the neighborhood, so they weren’t interested in building a new home.”
But the Thorntons were interested in updating and expanding – substantially. “There was a good bit of expansion and reworking of space,” agrees Mark Nasrallah, whose firm provided the architecture.
Working with interior designer Grant Gribble, the team achieved a look that is modern but also warm and a space that is functional and very high tech.
“It was really a case of updating the whole home, of bringing it up to date with current tastes,” Nasrallah says. “For example, we added a lot of closet space. Closets that were considered large 15 years ago are small by today’s standards.”
“They wanted a much more luxurious master bath,” Farina adds. “Also, they wanted a complete mother-in-law suite, an exercise room and a really tricked-out theater room.”
In all, the expansions added about 2,400 square feet to the existing 5,000 square feet, Farina says.
The theater and whole-house audio – which run from a media server located in new space on the second floor – along with a dazzling array of lighting fixtures, all centrally controlled, meant a lot of work for subcontractor Ed Wolk of Brite Electric.
“The lighting and controls we used were more along the lines of what you’d expect in a commercial project,” Wolk says. “The Thorntons had artwork and sculpture throughout the house that they wanted to accentuate with lighting. And all of it had to be controllable from a central point.”
In addition to being able to control lighting throughout the house from a single point, there are also three handheld remotes that control lighting, audio and video.
“The installation was unique, and we used lighting fixtures from California, Germany, all over,” he explains. “And there are a lot of LED lights, too. The master bath has LED lighting inset into the tile, and when you walk in, they look like jewels.”
Accomplishing all of the homeowners’ goals took some design work and extra installation. Wolk estimates he put in five to eight times the amount of wiring he’d normally use in a residence this size. That included large, bulk cables known as structured wiring. In the past, most homes were wired using a daisy-chain system, with wire from one light fixture or cable jack running on to the next one. Structured wiring integrates all of the home’s wiring, with the wires terminating at a control box, rather than running point to point.
“We recommend to our clients that they use structured wiring because it picks up all of your needs,” Nasrallah points out. It also allows for easy expansion later on and for the ability to add capabilities as electronic devices evolve.
“The homeowners can log into the home’s control system from a remote computer, look at it and make changes,” Farina adds. “They can literally turn on the air conditioning by making a phone call.”
With a robust technological backbone in development, space planning to enhance the home’s livability became the main focus.
“The Thorntons wanted to expand quite a bit,” Farina notes. “They wanted a luxury master bath, a very large master closet, a complete mother-in-law suite, an exercise room, a music room and a home theater.”
“One of the most unique things we did was create a media room over the garage,” Nasrallah adds. “No matter how much insulation you put in, when you add a media room, you can usually hear the sound system all over the house.
“This one is on a half-level: you go up the stairs halfway, then you can turn one direction for the music room and the other way for the media room. The sound system in there will blow your ears out, but you don’t hear it anywhere else.
“We also separated the bedrooms. We compartmentalized with the children having their own wing with a center hallway where their bedrooms are on one side and the mother-in-law suite is on the other side.”
Creating the upper story for the media room was actually less work than originally planned, Farina notes: “Mark’s group thought we might need to add footers to support the upper story, but we were able to add some trusses and not touch the foundation.”
Interior finishes are one of the home’s strong suits, and the team worked together to get a look that was contemporary, yet warm and inviting.
“If you were to do a contemporary design that was all drywall, glass and stainless, you can’t warm that up,” Nasrallah says. “Modern can get very monotone, but you can use a variety of wood to warm it up.”
Indeed, there’s a wide variety of wood with numerous finishes throughout the house.
“We went from painted wood to raw wood to wood that’s been sanded, stained and lacquered,” Farina says. “There’s bamboo flooring along with tile in the living and dining rooms. Not everything is the same; it changes from room to room.”
Wood even made its way onto the ceiling in the great room, where it counterpoints the millwork of windows that lead into the second-story addition. But, perhaps its most dramatic use is in the master bath, where a new wall of maple contrasts with the heavily veined flooring and elmwood cabinets.
In the kitchen, wood was paired with rough-dressed stone, which covers one wall and wraps around the breakfast bar. In the foyer, dark teak with a unique diamond texture covers the wall, a stark departure from the paint or wallpaper used in many entryways.
Farina and Nasrallah credit the homeowners with having a strong vision for their new space. That’s something that comes from living in a space for awhile, Farina says.
“When people remodel, they’ve had time to live in a house, to figure out what works and what doesn’t,” he explains. “The Thorntons had beautiful taste, and it resulted in a very elegant, but contemporary and comfortable, look.”
“I think we’re going to see a lot of projects like this one over the next few years,” Nasrallah agrees. “A decade ago the focus was on building a house, selling it, then building another. Now, when you’re getting settled into a home and a neighborhood, you may not want to move. The key is to make the additions look like they were always there.”
And as this project proved, with a little vision and some help, you can get the new house you’re dreaming of – without moving across town.
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