October 2, 2004

A timeless beauty
An Idea House for Coastal Living magazine superbly blends the worn and weathered with the sophisticated and high-tec

By JUDT STARK

APOLLO BEACH - It's the doors that tell the story.

The front door is mahogany, 8 feet tall, with six glass panes and a rich, dark patina that suggests elegance and age.

The doors from the living room to the veranda, overlooking the pool, are wood Pella French doors with insulated glass to stand up to coastal wind and water.

The doors from the screened porch to the terrace are new-but-look-old custom-made wooden screen doors that slap closed with a satisfying thump.

They wrap up the message of the Coastal Living Idea House, which opens today at MiraBay, a new residential community on U.S. 41 on the eastern shore of Tampa Bay: the nostalgic and the new, high tech and high touch, timeless but up to date.

"Old in design but very modern in its features," said Michael Morris of Bayfair Custom Homes, the builder. The house is for sale, furnished, for $2,790,000. The magazine expects that 30,000 visitors, many from outside the Tampa Bay area, will tour the house between now and March 20. Its special section devoted to the house - 58 pages in the November-December issue - is the magazine's best-read feature each year. The house attracted a record 35 national sponsors and 40 local ones whose products or services are showcased.

"It really is the best house we've ever done. It will be hard to top it," editor in chief Kay Fuston said at a preview party last week for 600 guests.

A house such as this - five bedrooms and 4 1/2 baths in 4,700 square feet, guest house, garages for three cars, pool and spa, outdoor kitchen and a very high level of finish and detail - would typically take "16 to 18 months to build. We did it in 11," Morris said as he walked through the house a few days ago.

Morris pointed out more examples of old and new. The ceiling in the living and dining room is new stained cedar paneling. The hand-hewn 20-foot oak beams that cross it are 100-plus years old, weighing 1,500 pounds each, from a barn in North Carolina.

The beadboard ceilings in the kitchen, family room (known as the keeping room) and master bedroom are new, "insulated and engineered, but they look like an old house at the beach." The bar top is mahogany, with marine overtones, "that will look prettier in five years than it does today," Morris said.

The house, with metal roof and wide second-story porches on front and back, was designed by Tampa architectural firm Cooper Johnson Smith in a style that evokes St. Augustine and the Panhandle rather than the Mediterranean or Key West. When construction started, Morris said, "People thought it looked like a big obelisk. Then as we started to add the details - the cornices, the window details, the trim on the roof, the rafter tails - they all added up. Good architecture is a lot of little nuances. Ninety-eight percent of people will look at this house and they won't be able to tell you why they like it, but it's the little details."

Jennifer Garcia, an architect who worked on the house when she was with Cooper Johnson Smith and is now with Bayfair, said, "I'm really extraordinarily proud and pleased" with the way it turned out. "The carpentry and trim work everywhere turned out to be just as they had been envisioned. It's a wonderful example of craftsmanship."

The home's color palette ranges from taupe and putty on the outside to soft, washed-out aquas, khaki and moss greens, dusty terra cotta and muted gold inside.

"We chose all the colors with the thought of the landscape," said interior designer Susan Lovelace of Lovelace Interiors in Destin. Original paintings done for the house were inspired by the land and water outside.

Lovelace separated the 20- by 40-foot living-dining room into several spaces. Two round dining tables, each seating four, offer a more congenial dinner-party atmosphere than one big table, she said, and the space can be used for cocktails or reading "and not just for dinner four times a year."

Builder Morris said the master suite is "by far my favorite." The walls are a soft green with gold and brown tones called Sorrel, "a really relaxing color for a bedroom," he said. Sheer draperies look ready to drift in the breeze when it's cool enough to open the doors and windows. The walls of the master bath are sided with painted pine planks run horizontally, a detail Morris likes.

"I like the view from that room, the spa right outside, the beadboard ceiling. It's very pleasant and calm and cool," Morris said. "It's a neat space." He could have been describing the entire house.

Visiting the Idea House
WHAT: Coastal Living Idea House, 4,700-square-foot showcase home. The house will be featured in the magazine's November-December issue of Coastal Living magazine.

WHERE: MiraBay, residential community on U.S. 41 in Apollo Beach. From Interstate 75 southbound take Exit 246. Turn west on Big Bend Road, then south on U.S. 41. MiraBay is 3 1/2 miles ahead on the right.

WHEN: House is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday through March 20.

TICKETS: $10 each or two for $15 at the door. The Florida Aquarium's teacher education program benefits.

INFORMATION: (813) 645-1000.