Dream Home Summer 2017

Enter the grand foyer through the double-glass doors of the newest Dream Home in Westlake, and it’s as if you’ve stepped into a gallery where lines of sight take you off in multiple directions. Straight ahead, and you’re in the 6,700-square-foot Spanish Mediterranean transitional home’s great room, which opens onto a covered patio, hot tub and pool through four sliding sectional glass doors. Transitional design brings the outdoors in, dramatically expanding the living space, and the Summer 2017 Dream Home at 2017 Granada Trail is up to the challenge. “You’re suddenly open to the air,” the builder, Curt DuBose, says.

Look up into the entryway atrium, and you get a glimpse of the game room loft that serves as an enormous landing for the second floor, it's three bedroom suites, and big covered veranda.

Turn left, and you’re in the formal dining room, warmly lit with 12 glass pendants and splashed with light from the Dream Home’s entry courtyard. Turn right, and step into the spacious home office with generous white oak built-in cabinets and a secret entry to a private guest casita that has its own exterior entry onto the front courtyard. A glass-curtained tile wine room, lit with cascading LEDs, is tucked into the nook beneath the stairs that lead to the loft.

Step further into the great room, and off to the right, there’s the first-floor game room, which opens onto the covered patio through a sliding-glass-door wall on one side, and onto a pergola-covered patio through double doors on another side.

To the left of the great room is the master suite, which opens onto the covered patio through small French doors. A massive bath and shower provide Dream Home’s future owner with a spa-like retreat.

A functional modern kitchen – packed with the latest appliances – and a breakfast bar open into the great room and a second, informal dining space.

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The Entry

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“Everything has real clean lines,” says DuBose, a managing partner for Vesta Custom Homes, the Dream Home builder. “The building world has always been caught up in texture and paint and all things that interfere with clean lines.”

Dream Home’s arrays of windows help light move through. AVID Associates, the Dallas-based interior designer for the Westlake project, augmented the spaces with light fixtures and fans in metals and woods that blend antique, modern and industrial looks.

Upstairs, more invites. The three bedrooms open into the upstairs game room loft, which opens onto a covered veranda through a wall of sliding glass doors. The veranda, almost as big as the loft, overlooks the tub and pool that are built into a gently sloping hill.

And Dream Home is smart too. The future owner will be able to easily control functions like air and heat, audio and visual, and security. And, the system is upgradable. “It’s fully automated,” DuBose says.

Dream Home No. 14: Westlake

The five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath Westlake Dream Home is the latest in the magazine’s long-running series, in which the magazine teams with builders and vendors to showcase the latest in home design and fashion.

Dream Home is nestled in the heart of Westlake, close to Texas 114, Southlake Town Square, Solana, and Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. It overlooks the Entrada European village under development nearby. Residents have access to either Westlake or Southlake public schools, “which is unbelievable,” DuBose says.

Vesta is building the Dream Home on spec. Our vendors, working in conjunction with the builder, offer up everything from the trusses to the drywall, interior amenities, swimming pool and landscaping.

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The Great Room

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Dona Robinson Associates of Brigg’s Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty, the magazine’s official Dream Home Realtor, is listing it at $2.495 million.

Dream Home is the latest project for Vesta, which is preparing to rebrand as PentaVia. Vesta has 14 homes underway in Granada and is building 12 townhomes in the neighboring Entrada development “that will lead to 72 townhomes that we will do,” DuBose says.

DuBose has been building homes for 20 years, including in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow and for the Kaleidoscope of Homes luxury showcase. Vesta’s rebrand will focus on homes in three price ranges: $450,000-$750,000, $1 million-$1.5 million, and $1.6 million and up.

DuBose’s company provides digital simulations of its homes to prospective buyers, using virtual reality Google Cardboard headsets to allow customers to take virtual tours before they buy. “It’s enabling the customer to touch, see, feel the space before it’s built,” he says.

AVID: Southlake-born

AVID Associates, founded in 2010 in Dallas by the Southlake resident Alana Villanueva, specializes in interior architectural detail. It’s involved at construction in 90 percent of its projects, working with the architects and builders to influence traffic flow and design of spaces. Seventy-five percent of its projects are residential, including “a lot of specs,” Villanueva says.

The three-employee firm recently completed work on a home in Dallas’ Highland Park, which sold for $6 million, Villanueva says. The firm also does corporate work, including a 10,000-square-foot conference center and kitchen in a corporate office in Coppell, and a conference room, office, bar, and retail space for a luxury jewelry boutique in Dallas’ Galleria Towers. AVID also is looking to add more wellness and LEED-certified energy-efficient projects to its portfolio, Villanueva says.

Villanueva, who has an associate degree in interior design from Wade College in Dallas, started her career in 2003, working on the upscale private neighborhood Vaquero in Westlake.

She moved to the Dallas Design Group, where she spent five years before deciding to go out on her own, giving her more freedom to be mom to her four children. “Friday is work-from-home day,” she says.

For the Dream Home, AVID is doing the interior architectural detailing, choosing the floor, molding, lighting, plumbing fixtures, cabinetry, paint, countertops, tile, stonework, and exterior paint and stains. She’s also doing the interior and exterior staging and, off of the Dream Home project, launched a staging company.

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The Game Room

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For Dream Home, Villanueva and her team chose a color palette full of greens, blues, aquas, teals and yellows.

“Soothing tones,” she says. The fixtures throughout the home are largely of modern-slanting metals and LED lights, art pieces in themselves. For staging, Villanueva brought in artworks to augment the transitional and modern spaces and commissioned a number of custom-made furniture pieces.

First Impressions

Walk up to the Dream Home, and you’re greeted first by its spacious courtyard, with living spaces built around an exterior fireplace and an outside entry to a guest casita. Such extroversion is not unusual among homes in the neighborhood, Villanueva says.

Enter Dream Home through its big metal-framed glass doors, built by the Dream Home vendor Durango Doors, and you step onto the light and airy engineered white oak wooden floors AVID chose.

The atrium entryway is accented by a polished nickel globe fixture with light produced by LED tape on the interior.

Villanueva framed the entries to the dining and great rooms with ebony-stained, 1-by-12 pine moldings, matching the color in the kitchen cabinets and fireplace accents in the great room and adding elegance to the modern spaces. “It defines the spaces,” she says. 

For the lighted, glass-enclosed refrigerated wine room, beneath the staircase that leads to the second floor, Villanueva chose interlocking natural limestone for 3-D texture on the back wall, the same treatment she uses for a niche separating the dining and great rooms.

Floating ceiling-to-floor wine racks provide a vintage view of several hundred  bottles. “It’s almost an art installation in itself,” Villanueva says.

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The Dining Room

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Sit Down and Eat

The dining room is augmented by a triple-pendant fixture, with blown glass globes with smoked and black hues. Dream Home doesn’t incorporate many interior architectural elements, so “the lighting was really called into action to be a focal point,” Villanueva says.

AVID staged the dining room with an ebony tabletop on a carved, linear sculpted base, dining chairs in gray woven fabrics, and abstract art pieces.

Dream Home’s kitchen, which flows into the great room in a big open space, shows off the work of The Kitchen Source, Dream Home’s exclusive provider of kitchen cabinetry, and the appliance package installed by Expressions Home Gallery. The kitchen includes Wood-Mode fine custom cabinetry and Brookhaven by Wood-Mode.

“We have featured some of our latest soft contemporary finishes, including the sleek white back-painted glass doors and vertical grain high-pressure laminate on the island, which incorporates our integrated hardware,” says Elizabeth Tranberg, The Kitchen Source’s designer.

The cabinetry also uses ebony wire-brushed white oak. The island cabinetry is done in gray-stained white oak. Select cabinets include interior LEDs that turn on when the doors open and illuminate the contents. The Kitchen Source did the refrigerator and freezer wall in a rich cherry finish; the wall conceals a coffee bar and hidden door to the walk-in pantry.

The island countertop and breakfast bar are done in Cristallo Quartz natural stone, with mitered edges and waterfall sides, provided by KLZ Stone.

“The material is brought in from Brazil and will illuminate with under-counter lighting,” says Maggie Addison of KLZ. “Beautiful, subtle and peaceful.” The countertop is accented by stainless hardware provided by Pierce Decorative Hardware & Plumbing, which provided fixtures throughout Dream Home.

A wall surrounding the vent hood is created with porcelain limestone-effect, tile-clad. The vent hood is covered with a sheet of gray back-painted glass. The backsplash is a linear porcelain plank.

AVID again uses lighting to elevate the space, bring some modern lines into the kitchen, and offset the dark colors. Villanueva brought in frost-textured glass pendants 42 inches above the countertop. “It has a cascading waterfall effect,” Villanueva says.

Dream Home’s panel-ready appliance package starts with a Wolf 60-inch dual fuel range with six burners and infrared dual griddle. The range offers more than nine cubic feet of convection capacity in two ovens.

Dream Home’s kitchen also sports Sub-Zero: a 36-inch integrated column refrigerator with internal water dispenser and soft-close doors and drawers, a 36-inch integrated column freezer, and a 15-inch ice maker. Dream Home’s dishwasher is a 24-inch XXL panel-ready Asko.

The kitchen and breakfast bar flow into an informal dining space that flows into the great room. Villanueva positioned a straight banquette against a wall, with rustic distressed white oak tables with chrome legs and seating.

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The Kitchen

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The Great Room

One of the great room’s focal points is a fireplace with a limestone-clad surround and ebony-stained wood mantel. A second focal point is a floating, drop-down sheetrock ceiling element that Villanueva augmented with three circular ebony and LED-lit fixtures, in wood veneer.

AVID staged the large great room with two conversation areas. A sofa in gray brushed velvet with accent pillows highlights one of the spaces. Two sculpture accent chairs with burnished metal frames, a cocktail table in ebony and nickel, and petrified wood side tables complete the vignette. Artwork and ethnic and tribal-themed accessories accentuate the space. Villanueva staged the second great room space with a glass cocktail table and two swivel chairs.

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The Casita Suite

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Study in Flexibility

The study and casita give Dream Home’s new owner plenty of flexibility. Combined, the suite can be a two-room home office with its own bathroom and exterior entrance. “It can be a great home office,” Villanueva says.

She staged the room with its own entry as a guest bedroom. “It’s a destination space, with almost a cabana feeling,” she says. She’s brought in a distressed wood canopy bed with polished nickel accents, an accent chair, and natural gemstones and minerals showcased in the art and accessories.

Villanueva staged the study, separated from the casita by a hidden door in the built-in cabinetry, with a floating desk in the middle of the room, fashioned of rift-cut white oak and an invisible acrylic leg. “We had it fabricated for the house,” she says. The built-in white oak credenza includes an emerald quartzite countertop.

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The Study

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Playtime

The game room, just off of the great room, includes a bar done in oak. Its countertop is a Brazilian quartzite that boasts large quartz and mica formations throughout.

Villanueva staged the room with a glass-topped game table and sculptured metal base and four chairs, and a pool table, all furnished by Fort Worth Billiards, a Dream Home vendor.

The adjoining carpeted media room, which opens from the game room through a set of pocket doors, shows off four overstuffed barrel swivel chairs in textured black and ivory fabric, a hammered round cocktail table, and two bar-height tables and chairs in the room’s corners, all oriented toward a big wall-mounted flat panel.

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The Master

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Getaway: Master Suite

The multi-room master suite is highlighted by a circular, globe glass pearl light fixture in the bedroom. Villanueva augmented the room space with a king bed and upholstered wingback headboard, two sculptured nightstands, an ebony and polished nickel credenza, and circular mirror with a plaster and silver finish.

Dream Home is full of surprises, and a barn-style door separates the bedroom from the master bath. The bath features a large, sauna-like, floor-to-ceiling glass-walled shower and built-in tub enclosure, with a central door. The shower features spa, rain and handheld heads. The bathroom floors and walls are finished in large-format porcelain stone to match the Calcutta Caldia marble countertops from Italy.

“The perfect piece of transitional stone,” KLZ’s Addison says.“It’s very modern,” Villanueva says.

The cabinetry is done in white oak, with a floating system that doesn’t extend to the floor. Storage is all drawers – no doors – and the wooden surround hides two medicine cabinets.

A glass mosaic wall by Daltile creates a geometric backsplash above the oversized floating vanity. An assortment of rectangular mirrors, broken up by two pendant lights, emphasizes the pattern. 

The master bath also features a water closet, big walk-in closet, and bonus massage room.

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The Kids Rooms

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Upstairs: Kids’ Cave

Dream Home is full of art – and places to display it – and, on the way up the main staircase to the second floor, Villanueva made use of a big landing wall for a sculpture and art installation. She’s put in a 3-D white cube accent with silver leaf mounted on the wall. And in a niche at the top of the stairs, Villanueva also brought in original art.

The second-floor entertainment loft leads to the three upstairs children’s bedrooms and to a covered patio that overlooks the pool.

For the room, Villanueva chose a sofa, chaise lounge, cocktail table, and swivel chair, oriented toward a wall-mounted flat panel screen. A snack bar with tile backsplash serves the kids and their guests.

One of the three bedrooms is tailored for a boy, with cool tones and slate blue accents. The king bed frame is in rustic wood. Villanueva chose an accent chair with a brass base. The porcelain-clad shower wall incorporates petrified wood imagery.

A second upstairs bedroom is for a girl, with a textured glass blossom light fixture that’s an homage to the glass artist Dale Chihuly, featuring polished chrome detail and petals made of Murano glass imported from Italy. “It’s made to look like a piece of artwork,” says Shannon Nogar, lighting manager for Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery, which provided Dream Home’s ceiling, wall, under-counter, and stair lights.

Villanueva furnished the room with an ivory-tufted wingback headboard and king bed, scalloped Dorothy Draper-inspired nightstands, a 3-D floral framed mirror, chair and natural-specimen shadow boxes. The bathroom shower is done in polished porcelain tile in ivory and cream.

A third bedroom is furnished with a king bed and upholstered headboard in bronze fabric, abstract art and a colorful rug. An umber-colored leather wing chair sits as an accent near a window.

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The Loft

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Transitional: Bringing the Outside In

Transitional design brings the outdoors into the living space. Dream Home’s great room sweeps into the covered living space, shielded from the heat by retractable screens provided by Southwest Shade Solutions. 

Our outdoor furniture vendor, Yard Art, outfitted the patio with a dining room table and chaise lounges around the pool. It also provided the outdoor kitchen beneath a pergola outside the game room. For the upstairs veranda, Villanueva brought in a U-shaped sectional.

The pool, built by Watercrest Pools, includes a negative-edge hot tub just off of the covered patio. “Motion elicits emotion,” says DuBose, the builder.

Vesta’s designs embrace five principles, DuBose says: physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and personal/spiritual.

Physical encompasses the building and its environs. The intellectual aspect of design encourages exploration, he says. Example: a kids’ playroom with a stage. Social: “How does the house facilitate communication?” Emotional: “Where does the Christmas tree go? And the very next question is, how’s Christmas going to present as the kids come down the stairs?” Personal and spiritual: “How do we set up a home so it engages and challenges you?”

“It’s not just about the house,” says DuBose, who’s signed on to build the magazine’s 2018 spring Dream Home, a $2.9 million modern transitional hacienda in the second phase of Granada. “It’s about the wedding in the backyard. It’s about bringing the baby home for the first time. It’s about Christmas morning, the high school graduations.”   

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Here’s who’s who in Fort Worth Magazine’s Summer 2017 Dream Home:

Builder

Vesta Custom Homes 

660 N Carroll Ave. Southlake, Texas 76092 | 817-768-3884, vestacustomhomes.com

Interior design and decoration

 AVID Associates

135 Pittsburgh, Suite A3 Dallas, Texas 75207, 214-934-7374 avidassoc.com

Realtor

Dona Robinson Associates, Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty

112 State Street #200 Suite 102 Southlake, Texas 76092 |214-906-7069, donarobinson.com

Air and heat

J&S Air Inc.

7307 Business Place Arlington, Texas 76001-7135 | 817-695-1840, jsair.com

Appliances

Expressions Home Gallery

325 Commerce Street, Suite 100 Southlake, Texas 76092 | 682-651-4000, expressionshomegallery.com

AV and low-voltage wiring

Universal Systems

2960 Wesley Way Fort Worth, Texas 76118 | 817-589-9966, uni-sys.com

Building materials 

BMC

104 E. Hurst Blvd. Hwy 10 Hurst, Texas 76053 | 817-737-8877, buildwithbmc.com

Cabinets

Chip’s Cabinets & Baths

7503 U.S. Highway 287 South Arlington, Texas 76001 |817-478-2447, chipskitchens.com

Countertops and granite fabrication

KLZ Stone Supply

11129 Zodiac Lane, Suite 300 Dallas, Texas 75229 | 972-807-6187, klzstone.com

Drywall

Partin Drywall

P.O. Box 952 Boyd, Texas 76023 | 940-433-8305

Entry, front

Durango Doors4015 West Vickery Blvd. Fort Worth, Texas 76107 | 817-368-5709, durangodoors.com

Fabrication

Century Granite & Marble

695 E. State Highway 114 Southlake, Texas 76092 | 817-329-9499, centurygranitemarble.com

Fireplace, exterior/fireplace and stone

Metro Brick and Stone

2184 Joe Field Road Dallas, Texas 75229 | 972-991-4488, metrobrick.com

Fire sprinklers

Haynes Fire Protection

2129 Carlotta Drive Fort Worth, Texas 76177 | 682-365-8343, haynesfire.com

Flooring, carpet and hardwoods

Vintage Floors

3004 W. Lancaster St. Fort Worth, Texas 76107 | 817-877-1564, vintagefloors.co

Garage doors

Open Up Garage Doors

10500 E. Hurst Blvd. Hurst, Texas 76053 | 817-399-9092, openupgaragedoors.com

Gutters

Loveless Gutters

6816 Harmonson Road North Richland Hills, Texas 76180 |817-590-2583, lovelessgutter.com 

Hardware

Pierce Fine Decorative Hardware and Plumbing

4030 West Vickery Blvd. Fort Worth, Texas 76107 | 817-737-9090, piercehardware.com

Insulation

Red Oak Insulation

301 Overlook Drive Glenn Heights, Texas 75154 | 972-617-0740, redoakinsulation.com

Iron fence

Magnolia Fence & Patio

6080 South Hulen Street Suite 360 Box 197 Fort Worth, Texas 76123 | 817-995-7467, magnoliafenceandpatio.com

Kitchen cabinets

The Kitchen Source

3116 W. 6th Street Fort Worth, Texas 76107 | 817-731-4299, thekitchensource.net

Landscaping

Guardado Landscaping

3228 Alta Mere Drive Fort Worth, Texas 76116 | 817-732-3434, guardadolandscaping.com

Landscaping lighting

Passion Lighting

1649 W. Northwest Highway Grapevine, Texas 76051 | 817-310-3261, passionlighting.com

Lighting (interior/exterior) fixtures

Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery

3433 W. 7th St. Fort Worth, Texas 76107, fergusonshowrooms.com

Paint

Sherwin Williams

1451 Keller Parkway Keller, Texas 76248 | 817-431-2841, sherwinwilliams.com

Painting labor

J&V Painting Plus, LLC

4429 Birchman Ave. Fort Worth, Texas 76107 | 817-291-0207,  jandvpainting.com

Patio furniture

Yard Art Patio and Fireplace

Five locations throughout the Metroplex | myyardart.com

Plumbing

Pro Serve Plumbing

11255 Camp Bowie Boulevard West #120 Aledo, Texas 76008 | 817-244-0614, proserveplumbers.com

Pool

Watercrest Pools

9117 Belshire Drive Suite 100 North Richland Hills, Texas 76182 |817-431-8997, watercrestpools.com

Pool table

Fort Worth Billiards

2312 Montgomery Street Fort Worth, Texas 76107 | 817-377-1004, dfwbilliards.com

Retractable screen

Southwest Shade Solutions

1803 Tarrant Lane, Suite 200 B Colleyville, Texas 76034 | 817-329-4161, southwestshadesolutions.com

Stucco

Centurion Stone

526 Benson Lane Roanoke, Texas 76262 | 817-753-6242, centurionstone.com

Tile

Daltile

6323 Airport Freeway Haltom City, Texas 76117 | 682-647-1100, daltile.com

Wooden windows

Texas Custom Window & Door

3800 Pelham Road Fort Worth, Texas 76116 | 817-909-0179

The Dream Home is spectacular. But don’t take our word for it. Tour the home, and see for yourself during the 2017 Summer Dream Home tour, June 28 – July 23. Tickets are $10 for subscribers or free with a $15 subscription purchase. A portion of proceeds benefit a Wish with Wings. Buy tickets at fwtx.com.