 Before the Parade Passes By
One happy family stumbled
upon their dream house
during The Parade of Homes
BY MARY ANNE COLE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBERT FRENCH
It was during the 2007 Greater San Antonio Builders Association Parade of
Homes at Les Chateaux at The Dominion when one visitor fell in love.
Little did she know when she went on the tour that she and her husband
would end up buying one of the homes. But when she walked into the courtyard of
a palatial house featuring a magnificent waterfall, the woman was simply smitten.
The couple wasn’t even in the market for a house at the time: The woman was
just a visitor, like thousands of others on the Parade tour. However, she took one look
at the spacious Mediterranean-styled villa and was right at home.
“The house felt warm and comfortable,” she says while relaxing at the dining table.
Windows behind her provide a good view of the pool. “It felt very familiar psychologically— very comforting.”
Later when she returned for a second look at the
house, she brought a friend along. Then she had even
more reason to be impressed, for the friend called
attention to travertine floors in the kitchen; handpainted
Italian tile inlaid in the walnut floor of the
entryway; rich ceiling-to-floor silk draperies; beveled
nailheads in the study floor; copper inlays in bookshelves;
and the polished mesquite front door. “The
decorator and the builder put a lot of heart and effort
into the home,” the satisfied visitor-turned-homeowner
says. “The detail in the house is really remarkable.”
The house wraps almost 360 degrees around a
pool featuring a remarkable waterfall. A wide sheet of
water falls from high above the entryway. Visitors
enter through a front gate and pass the waterfall
before coming to a mesquite front door a few steps
away. The entry hall looks onto the pool through high
windows framed by hand-embroidered curtains that
cascade from the ceiling and pool on the floor. Past
the kitchen, the dining room leads to the great room.
Windows from all these spaces and an upstairs balcony
present arresting views of the pool.
 The guest casita, which completes the circle back
to the front gate, features an outdoor sitting area
near the pool, complete with a fireplace, television
and refrigerator. Inside the casita, the builder,
Silverleaf Custom Homes, and the interior designer
continue the attention to detail apparent throughout
the main home. Special touches, like copper inlays in
the bathroom floor and a copper basin with a stone mosaic lining, lend a classic look.
The home’s decorator, Lori Caldwell of Lori Caldwell
Designs, explains it was their intention to create a Santa-
Barbara-style home. “That style, like many things, originates in Europe,
and this is a true Mediterranean-style home with a
Spanish influence. Spanish and French Mediterranean
styles are intertwined, in that they use the villa style;
however, they also incorporate natural materials.” The
floors are travertine and wood, the walls are plaster, the
roof is clay, and stone complements the stucco.
“The combination of the natural materials and floor
plan is what makes it feel Mediterranean and warm,”
Caldwell explains. “We tried to keep it neutral and, yet
true to the style, so anyone who bought the house could
make his or her own furniture work in it.”
And work it did.
“I could see us living in the house without a lot of disruption
or change in our style,” the homeowners say.
Once this family with two small children purchased the
home and moved in, they were surprised by how well
the furnishings from their smaller former home fit. Their
own master bedroom set and comforter matched the
copper silk draperies already there. The couch that
everyone said would be too big for the upstairs landing
fit easily into the curved space. “It was as though it were
all meant to be,” says the homeowner.
Still, at 7,300 square feet, there was a lot of space
to fill.
“The house kept eating up everything I bought
because it was so big — even though it doesn’t feel big,”
the owner recalls. “It’s the biggest small house we’ve ever
lived in.”
The homeowner purchased new pieces, but she
kept her focus on the family treasures that grace nearly
every surface: family photos in attractive frames, her
grandmother’s hand mirrors, bright drawings of the
family made by her 5-year-old daughter, heirloom jewelry
pieces and even the glass Cinderella slipper in
which her husband presented her engagement ring
when he proposed.
A theme of scrolls and spirals seems prevalent in the
home’s design and the accessories and special touches
the family has added, but it wasn’t intentional. One of
the most remarkable of these whirls and swirls is the
wheels on a full-sized Cinderella coach bed complete with two fanciful white ponies, which the father designed
and had built for his daughter. For his son, Dad designed
a basketball-shaped bed.
 “It takes a takes a good team of people to put together
a fabulous house like this one,” says Caldwell. “That’s especially
true when creating a Parade house with such a stringent
time limitation. The builder and I, along with Delta
Granite & Marble, Miclen Resources and Design Materials,
all worked together. The house was basically built in six
months, but finishing it to perfection was a labor of love on
everyone’s part, and it shows.”
Although they’ve lived in the home only a few
months, the family has already hosted a big Christmas party and several smaller gatherings. “There are so many options
for entertaining in this house,” the homeowner says. “We’ll go up
to the movie room [with eight full-sized lounge chairs, a 120-
inch front projection screen and a refrigerator always stocked
with popcorn and sodas], or I’ll have my friends over for lunch,
and we’ll sit around the pool. My husband’s family gets together
every Sunday evening, and that’s easy to do here. I’ve noticed
we go out to dinner less because we like being here so much.
Instead of meeting friends at a restaurant, we tell them to come
here and bring their kids.”
Will the couple call this home forever? The wife wouldn’t mind.“My husband still wants to build a house, but I would be
happy to stay here,” says the lady who first fell in love with this
house. “Unless he integrates parts of this house into whatever
we build, he’ll have a hard time pulling me away. I don’t want a
palatial home — I want warmth.” Here in this enchanting villa, the family seems to have
found both.
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