2019 Dream Home: Walsh

A few things about our 2019 Dream Home, a contemporary hacienda built by Sean Knight Custom Homes on a westerly bluff in Parker County’s massive Walsh development: You won’t miss a sunset here, no matter whether you’re lounging in the home’s wide-open living spaces, grilling steaks on the covered patio, or draining a cold beer by the pool. You’ll be the first to see the power of a storm rumbling in from West Texas. And the high perch and large lot with no next-door neighbors mean your view won’t be blocked.

“I think it’s the best lot in here, because you don’t have anybody on either side of you, it’s elevated, you can see downtown Fort Worth, and you can see all the way back to the west,” Knight says. Says Debbie Hundley of The Design Center in Weatherford, which selected the finishes, furnishings, and accessories in the Dream Home: “This lot has the best view in all of Walsh.”

The 5,928-square-foot, four-bedroom, 4 1/2-bath home at 13708 Nouvelle Circle is the latest in a yearslong series by the magazine, in which we team with builders and vendors to show off the latest in luxury home design and construction. It’s listed for sale by John Zimmerman of Compass at $1.585 million. The home will be open for tours Sept. 28 — Oct. 20 to benefit a Wish with Wings, the magazine’s charity. Visitors can purchase tickets at fwtx.com.

The home is also the first to be completed in the Cline Park custom section of Walsh, the master-planned community taking shape on the former 7,200-acre Walsh Ranch. Walsh’s lifestyle-rich community includes an athletic club, lap and resort pools, neighborhood market and gas station, maker space, miles of hike and bike trails, parks, and recreational lagoon.

The home’s design, like much of Fort Worth’s luxury construction market, is significantly informed by influences of transitional design, with open living spaces that connect to the outdoors, and big fenestration that lets light spill through. The hacienda flair is evident in the Dream Home’s numerous arches and barrel vaults, stucco exterior, and Spanish tile roof. Hand-scraped wooden floors, and staircase, connect the home’s spaces. Its rich, stained pine decorative beams are a harkening. “This is a cleaner look,” Knight says. “The beams are your accent, the wood floors.”

To complement the Dream Home’s neutral color palette and dark wood accents, Hundley and Tammy McBee, owner of The Design Center, use color, metals, woods, stone, and fabric to set up contrasts and differing textures. Hundley and McBee also use a lot of clean, straight lines to create contrasts to the home’s round shapes. “We wanted to give it more of an updated edge,” Hundley says. “We wanted to bring the color in from Spanish houses, and we wanted the colors to pop.” 

---

Touring:

What: The Dream Home will be open for tours to benefit a Wish with Wings.

Where: 13708 Nouvelle Circle, Fort Worth. From Fort Worth, drive Interstate 30 west to Walsh Ranch Parkway. Go north to Cline Ridge Road, turn left (west) on Cline Ridge. Go to Nouvelle Circle, turn right. The Dream Home is on your left.

Tour tickets and times: You can purchase your tour tickets at fwtx.com.

Cost: $20

---

Dining Room

The dining room, which is just to the left of the foyer when one enters the home, has a large piece of art hanging on the west wall that serves as its centerpiece. The art, in a subdued Jackson Pollock-like fashion, includes turquoise and dark blue tones with a smattering of metallic gold — colors that complement those of the large rug. Again, keeping the majority of the room light — chairs, console, rug, etc. — makes the dark-wood beams, flooring, and table pop. The stain on the table is a near match of the hardwood flooring, and the stalactite-like crystal chandelier keeps with the designer’s geological theme. Adjacent to the dining room is the wine pantry and refrigerator, which has an impressive amount of cabinetry and space for bottles.

---

Stairway/Study

The Dream Home’s study sits just inside the entryway. Stained beams and doorway casings, a built-in credenza, and dual bookcases stained in gray and blue accent the room. Hundley and McBee added a wooden desk from Uttermost with grays, whites, and golds; gray chairs; and custom art pieces with teal highlights. “It’s a different texture, compared to the floor and beams,” Hundley says. The room has a pair of pocket doors that provide privacy.

---

Tur·ret, noun

1. a small tower on top of a larger tower or at the corner of a building or wall, typically of a castle. *From Oxford English Dictionary

---

Keeping Room

A room that extends just beyond the foyer and segues into the kitchen, keeping rooms, once a more prevalent design element during colonial times, are secondary living rooms that provide another area for residents and guests to sit and converse. This keeping room includes four pottery-blue leather chairs and a coffee table made from petrified wood. The room also continues the metallic-meets-natural-elements theme with an acid-washed rug that looks sprinkled with pyrite, which juxtaposes the worn-wood console in the small nook. 

---

Kitchen

The goal was to keep the kitchen bright and airy, which would allow the dark cabinetry; beams; and black, matte fixtures to pop. The Delta tile — a light gray and white diamond-pattern — serves as both the backsplash and filler between countertop and cabinet. Easy on the eyes, the tile complements the light granite countertops and colossal white cabinets. The kitchen also features a large hidden refrigerator, which has a cabinet-like façade. While many modern designs have the kitchen open to the living room, this kitchen is, instead, closed off from the main living area and opens only to the adjacent keeping room.

---

Living Room

The A-framed living room balances traditional Spanish flare with natural elements, which includes a custom onyx coffee table that serves as the room’s centerpiece. Touches of navies, greens, and golds stand out in a room that, otherwise, is filled with light earth tones. A custom Casa Bonita console with a blue tint pairs perfectly with the Rizzy rug and pillows that sit atop the custom Massoud sofa. A large geode in the north corner and a Tibetan custom bench on the west wall round out the room with stunning earth elements.

---

Master Suite

The master suite, set off on one end of the first floor, provides one of the Dream Home’s defining features: a two-story rotunda that functions as a sitting area for a powder bath and frames the entry to the suite. Beautiful Brushworks finished the rotunda’s rounded, concave ceiling in a glittering faux finish with mica, and it added a metal and glass pendant that augments light that already comes through the rotunda’s windows. Hundley and McBee make liberal use of navy in their furnishings of the space with a leather-covered bench in the center of the rotunda floor and vases in the atrium niches.

The master bedroom offers the same westward orientation as the Dream Home, including a private door and big divided light, arched window into the backyard and pool deck. Hundley and McBee used a big, white fabric headboard that blends with the white walls but added contrasts in the furnishings, including a handcrafted wooden chest from India and two wooden nightstands from Uttermost, and bedding. Hundley and McBee added a 7-foot antiqued wood-frame mirror. As in other rooms in the house, “we used the mirrors to reflect light,” Hundley says. The master suite also includes a coffee bar with small refrigerator and a gigantic dressing room, both with the same leathered, granite countertops as in the bath.

The master bath provides another study in contrasts. Light spills into the bath through an arched picture window over the tub. It illuminates the double barrel-vaulted ceilings and bounces off of the neutral-colored walls, leathered granite countertops, and glass-walled shower. Hundley and McBee added modern beveled mirrors and metal sconces, and large-sized tile on the floor, a contrast to the small oval-shaped tile floor they installed in the shower. Three simply designed metal pendants, a harkening to antique lanterns, further light the room. Hundley and McBee add color to the room — most notably, navy — in a pair of custom floral pieces that hang over the tub. The master bath features a pair of his-and-her vanities and a makeup vanity.

---

Game Loft

The football refrigerator with a metallic coat might be the first thing that grabs a visitor’s eye — a welcome sight for a game room. Made from airplane parts, the refrigerator goes hand in hand with the television console, which is also made from a combination of wood and metal. The metal meshes with the bar’s backsplash while the wood pairs well with the coffee table and throw pillows — which give a petrified wood appearance. These chaotic wood patterns are brilliantly juxtaposed by the geometric rug.

---

Upstairs Bedrooms

The décor of the hall as one enters the upstairs accentuates the ceiling of the visible rotunda — the colors mirror that of the ceiling’s metallic sheen — and creates a natural flow. The first bedroom to the left, which is meant for a young girl, combines pink hues with a strong hunter green that perfectly contrasts the room’s softer tones. The focal point, and what lends the room its colors, is the large piece of art that sits next to the doorway — a flower-haired girl made from magazine cutouts. The room’s other art, three metallic eyelashes, textually juxtapose the bed’s green velvet headboard.

The other bedroom — the boy’s room — has a far more masculine color palette (navies and grays) and meshes wood with metal throughout. The room’s theme, transportation, is found throughout the space’s art — metallic Route 66 signs, pencil drawings of cars and motorcycles, road maps — and the heavy, metal pully lamp and boxes custom made by Scott Venton from an actual automobile, remain one of the room’s best features.

---

Guest Suite

The guest suite, at the opposite end of the Dream Home from the master suite, doubles as a dressing area and bath for the pool, just a few feet through a side door. The designer’s plan for the bath: “Something soothing,” Hundley says. She and McBee accented the room in teal and light blues. “We used large tiles to open up the floors.” The bedroom is highlighted by a metal frame bed and pendant. “We used a more transitional bed, and the lighting is more transitional.”

---

Outdoor Living

The Dream Home’s hacienda flavor is in full gear on the covered poolside patio, with its multiple archways and stained beadboard ceiling and beams. The patio sets up for at least two, if not three, vignettes. The kitchen, including a three-burner Coyote range, refrigerator, sink and granite countertop, has room for four barstools across the bar. The gas log fireplace, with flat-panel mounted above, is perfectly suited for a seasonal conversation pit. In between, set up a patio and table and chairs for a perfect meal. The floor is done in gray slate. Hundley and McBee brought in a travertine patio table, with wood and metal chairs, and an onyx-topped coffee table in the conversation pit. The pool, built by Puryear Custom Pools, includes an infinity-edge spa with glass tile, tanning ledge and fountain, and accent gardens. Poolside, Hundley and McBee put in two chaises.

---

Walsh: A New Community Rapidly Emerges on the Prairie

Our 2019 Dream Home is the latest piece in the Walsh master-planned community, a rapidly growing development on the sprawling 7,200-acre former Walsh Ranch in far west Fort Worth.

Sean Knight Custom Homes this summer completed the Dream Home at 13708 Nouvelle Circle, the first home in Walsh’s custom section to be completed. The home is listed at $1.585 million by Realtor John Zimmerman of Compass. Walsh — a partnership between Fort Worth’s Walsh family and development partner Republic Property Group of Dallas started in 2015 — has released about half of the 40 planned sites in its custom section.

More than 600 people now call Walsh home. The development has 527 lots in its first-phase production neighborhood, where homes start in the upper 200s and approach $1 million. Walsh has released the first 67 lots in its 553-lot, second-phase production neighborhood. Walsh is under development on its first 1,700 acres of the 7,200-acre ranch. At buildout, Walsh estimates it will be home to more than 15,000 families and nearly 50,000 residents.

Walsh continues to add amenities. Open: athletic club, pools, sport courts, maker space, workspace, Village Market and gasoline station, Aledo ISD’s Mary D. & F. Howard Walsh Elementary School, and hike and bike trails that wind through the neighborhoods. Cook Children’s is under construction on a clinic.

Walsh is adding more parks in its second production phase, whose Overlook Park is under construction with a playground and hillside slide and is expected to be complete in April.

“Overlook Park is going to be awesome,” Seth Carpenter, vice president of development, said. “We’ll start the landscaping at the end of this year. When you move in, you can go enjoy the parks. That’s a big deal for us, having the amenities ready Day One.”

Lake Park, being built around a lake that will be fed by Mary’s Creek and a second creek, also is under construction and scheduled to open in April. It’ll feature a sandy beach, playground, and turf beach, and it’ll be stocked with fish. Canoe rentals will be available. “A lot of thought has gone into using the natural habitat,” Carpenter said.  

---

Interior Department

Chatting with Dream Home Designers Tammy McBee and Debbie Hundley

Weatherford selling knickknacks and furniture. Two decades later, McBee and a business partner have two stores, 30,000 square feet of retail space, and a design service.

The Western Heritage Furniture and The Design Center sit next to each other on Fort Worth Highway outside downtown Weatherford. While the company maintains a Western flavor, The Design Center service works all styles. The company sells its products but offers its design service for free.

McBee and designer Debbie Hundley — who came to work for the company six years ago, manages The Design Center, and directs interior jobs for both stores — finished the interiors for the 2019 Dream Home, a luxury contemporary hacienda built by Sean Knight Custom Homes in west Fort Worth’s Walsh development. 

Why they like the Dream Home lot: DH: “This lot has the best views in all of Walsh. Upstairs, it’s got the most amazing views.”

Their vision for the Dream Home: DH: “We wanted to give it more of an updated edge. We wanted to bring the color in from Spanish houses, and we wanted the colors to pop. The colors just opened up the rooms.”

The company’s niche: TM: “We design for free; we decorate for free. The only thing we sell is the product.”

Creating contrasts, using shapes, color, materials and texture: DH: “We used different materials so there would be different texture. Anywhere we used a dark piece of furniture, we tried to offset it with the light. Every one of the onyx [furniture pieces] is custom.”

Moving into design from retail: TM: “We didn’t mean to do design. It just kind of happened. People just started to come in and ask, ‘Can you do this?’”

Strengths: DH: “We’ve done modern, we’ve done contemporary, we’ve done traditional urban. We do it all.”

---

Our Dream Home’s Plenty Smart, Too

Our Dream Home’s got a lot going on behind the walls. Smart home technology is one of those things.

The Dream Home has Crestron’s Pyng smart home system, installed by Dominion Design and Integration. The Dream Home’s new owner, using the control panel inside the home or mobile app on his or her phone, will be able to control lighting, air conditioning, music, and security with ease — and remotely. Additionally, the Dream Home’s Dacor kitchen appliance package — refrigerator/freezer, range, and dishwasher — has a host of smart applications that allow you to do everything from check what you’ve got inside the fridge if you’re away from home, to starting the range and dishwasher by remote.

The energy-saving features are part of a bigger package of energy-efficiency features in the Dream Home, including full foam encapsulation and high-efficiency air conditioning and heating, windows and doors.

The smart home system is easily controlled. “You’ll be able to do everything from your phone,” Sean Knight of Sean Knight Custom Homes, the Dream Home builder, says. On your way home? You can connect by mobile app and turn the cooling down. Want to turn all the lights in your new home off? Or dim them to, say, 50 or 75 percent of illumination? One button. You can pipe music into every room via hidden speakers. “Whoever buys this, they can come in and do anything they want,” Knight said.  

---

Thank you to our vendors:

Builder: Sean Knight Custom Homes. 109 S. Ranch House Road, #107, Aledo 76008. 817.560.0828, Seanknightcustomhomes.com

Home plans: Grand Home Designs. 114 Sproles Drive, Suite 103, Benbrook 76126. 817.696.0520, Grandhomedesigns.com

Interior: The Design Center. 1535 Fort Worth Highway, Weatherford 76086. 817.594.4051, Westernheritageweatherford.net

Official Dream Home Broker: John Zimmerman, Compass. 5049 Edwards Ranch, Clear Fork Trail, 4^th floor, Fort Worth, 76109. 817.247.6464, Jzfortworth.com

Air and heat: Hobbs Heating & Air. 155 S.E. Parkway, Azle 76085. 817.822.9180

Appliances: Expressions Home Gallery. 100 East 15th St., Suite 200, Fort Worth 76102. 844.842.0841, Expressionshomegallery.com

Countertops: KLZ Stone Supply. 11129 Zodiac Lane, #300, Dallas 75229. 972.807.6187, Klzstone.com

Door, front entry: Durango Doors. 4015 W. Vickery Blvd., Fort Worth 76107. 817.732.8181, durangodoors.com

Door knobs: Fort Worth Lighting. 5107 E. California Parkway, Forest Hill, 76119. 817.534.8500, Fortworthlighting.com

Gutters: Loveless Gutters. 6816 Harmonson Road, North Richland Hills 76180. 817.590.2583, Lovelessgutter.com

Lighting, interior and outdoor: Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery. 3433 W. 7^th St., Fort Worth, 76107. 817.348.8489, ferguson.com

Mirrors, glass and showers: Fashion Glass & Mirror. 585 Interstate 35 East, DeSoto 75115. 972.223.8936, Fashionglass.com

Moving company: Firefighting’s Finest Moving & Storage. 3101 Reagan Drive, Fort Worth, 76116. 817.482.6641, Firefightermovers.com

Paint materials: Sherwin-Williams. 1702 Bethel Road, Weatherford 76086. 817.598.0943, Sherwin-williams.com

Plumbing fixtures: Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery. 3433 W. 7^th St., Fort Worth, 76107. 817.348.8489, ferguson.com

Pool: Puryear Custom Pools. 2200 Cantrell Sansom Road, Fort Worth 76131. 817.306.5169, Puryearpools.com

Rail and stair: Aaron Ornamental Iron Works. 107 West Barron, Everman 76140. 817.731.9281, Aaronornamental.com

Roofing: Red Barn Roofing Company. 2221 FM 1187, Crowley 76036. 817.447.1761, Redbarnroofinginc.com

Smarthome: Dominion Design and Integration. 16161 College Oak, San Antonio 78249. 210.404.9838, Dominiontx.com

Tile: Daltile. 720 Industrial Blvd., Southlake 76051. 817.251.0774, Daltile.com