A tour of Fort Worth Magazine"s 2018 Home of Dreams, under construction on a bluff in Westlake's Granada development, represents a journey down what the builder, PentaVia Custom Homes, calls five roads unique to luxury homebuilding.
Together, the roads - physical, social, intellectual, emotional and personal - refine luxury, Curt DuBose, PentaVia's managing partner, says. Homes are no longer just structures to live in. Rather, they foster communication, relationships, thought and creativity, help create lifelong moments and memories, and challenge you personally, says Curt DuBose, PentaVia's managing partner.
That might seem like a tall order for something that starts with concrete, rebar and two-by-fours, but PentaVia has rethought even that. "It's not about five bedrooms and five baths; we're trying to go deeper," DuBose says.
The 2018 Home of Dreams is a 6,465-square-foot, five-bedroom, six-bath, modern traditional hacienda, designed by architect John Hathaway of Austin's Vanguard Studio, and expected to be complete later this year. Dona Robinson, of Allie Beth Allman & Associates, the magazine's official dream home Realtor, has listed the home, 2210 Costa Del Sol, at $2.895 million. Upon completion, the Home of Dreams will be open for tours that benefit the magazine's official charity, a Wish with Wings.
Open sight lines define the first floor of the home, offering a clear view from the kitchen to the great room.
It's the magazine's second luxury feature home in Granada; a PentaVia predecessor built our 2017 Dream Home in the luxury custom development, just minutes from Texas 114 and amenities like Southlake Town Square.
PentaVia's roadmap starts with the straightforward physical. "A great home is clearly more than just wood, metal, glass and stone," the company says. "Rather, the structure itself is the starting point for an unparalleled living experience." Milestones on the "physical road" include the highest materials, energy-efficiency and craftsmanship, and safe, secure, smart and "exceptionally livable" design, PentaVia says.
Windows and doors are recessed in a 2-by-10-inch-deep exterior wall framed of two-by-six and two-by-four walls. Hurricane clips tie the structure to the foundation. PentaVia encloses all of its homes in ZipWall structural sheathing and moisture barrier, with taped seams. "This is not Tyvek, this is not a house wrap," DuBose said during a recent walking tour of the construction site. "Water cannot penetrate this surface. It completely zips up the house."
The Home of Dreams is foam-encapsulated. Air and heat is delivered through a high-velocity air duct system that can fit inside a two-by-four wall. "Those big grilles you normally see, those go away completely," DuBose said. The air filters perform better, a fresh air system swaps new air for the old, and a humidity control allows the thermostats to be run at higher temperatures. "I can run my system, and it's going to feel like it's 73 [degrees] inside the house because the humidity level's been controlled," DuBose said.
Glass windows in the bathroom will bring in natural light but also turn opaque for privacy.
PentaVia's design also places a premium on open sight lines through the house and around the property. To create a big first-floor open space with sight lines from the kitchen through the great room to the study, and from the entry to the glass and steel-framed backyard wall, PentaVia is running two 40-foot-long steel I-beam headers to carry the loads.
"Somebody who's buying a luxury home really wants to maximize all areas of their home," DuBose says. "They really want to appreciate all aspects of their home. Sight lines do that."
PentaVia's "social road" means designing homes that help increase communication and help develop relationships.
"So many other builders follow predictable designs: placing media rooms upstairs and focusing the living room on a giant TV, distracting and dividing families," PentaVia says. "However, our homes are designed to foster genuine interactions with real people doing life together."
A rendering of a bedroom in the Home of Dreams
PentaVia likes to hide living room TVs and locate media rooms close to the kitchen, which it views as the "never center" of any home, so conversation flows and "joyful sounds and savory aromas of holiday meals" attract guests before the official dinner bell. Our Home of Dreams includes touches like a first-floor media room that's off of the kitchen. DuBose has designed his own home to de-emphasize television in the living room. The result: His kids spend much more time conversing. "The center of the home is no longer the TV," DuBose says.
PentaVia spends a lot of time on the "emotional road," using design, technology and other tools to create memories. One example DuBose likes to use is how your home presents on Christmas morning. "You literally set up those moments inside the house that last a lifetime," he says. "That's taking luxury to another level. Now we're beginning to define luxury not just in granite or quartz countertops or high-end finish out, but the way the home creates special unique moments like a wedding, like Christmas, those moments are the ones that are going to last a lifetime."
Our Home of Dreams owners will be able to step into a room, and, using voice commands, order up mood. "Literally, the lights will change, the music will change, and suddenly, "Silent Night" will play, or "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas,"" DuBose says. He's working on setting up a complete "Christmas moment" in the home, one of five "experiences" he's setting up.
PentaVia's "intellectual road" is one where it uses design to encourage creative thinking. Moving the media room downstairs is one example - the company's roads often intersect, DuBose says. "We design spaces so kids get outside of the box. Kids often get stuck playing video games."
A rendering of the Home of Dreams office.
He's built performance stages in game rooms, with a working microphone and a curtain that closes. "I don't know a kid on the face of the planet that wouldn't run up to a microphone and begin trying to sing karaoke," DuBose says. Bedrooms with kids" lofts and craft rooms are details PentaVia often adds for clients. "We're dropping the electronics, and we're thinking outside the box," he says.
On the "personal road," PentaVia looks to create spaces that "challenge and encourage you personally." This includes spaces like the Home of Dreams" first-floor, ventilated cigar room; 1,000-bottle wine room adjacent to the great room; and reading nook in the master bedroom.
The first-floor master suite includes giant walk-in, his-and-hers closets, secret entry into the study, and laundry; the upstairs kids" bedrooms have their own laundry center. The master bath includes a tub with big glass windows for direct light; one-touch button takes the glass from transparent to opaque. "It'll block out and create complete privacy," DuBose said.
The food-prep space includes a main kitchen and separate catering kitchen. "If you are a person who finds solace in cooking, you're going to get it in spades here," DuBose says.
PentaVia likes to install sconces next to the children's beds. "I like to foster reading," he says. "We want to provide a place for them to turn the light on, pick up that book, spend some time reading."
A 1,000-bottle wine closet sits adjacent to the kitchen and great room.
Outside, the gated, front-entry courtyard will have stucco privacy walls and a fountain with running water. In the backyard, the pool has a negative edge, swim-up bar, cabana and spa. The backyard will be graded so, sitting in the pool, you won't be able to see the rooflines of homes below.
PentaVia is wiring the Home of Dreams and setting its technological foundation up for the future and uses of artificial intelligence, DuBose says. Homes of the future will be highly intelligent. "As this begins to grow, it'll begin to learn at 5 o"clock, when you come into the kitchen, you don't like the lights to come blaring on," DuBose says. "You want them to be just dim, and you want the coffee to start. Not only that, it'll learn you want the coffee to start 30 minutes before you get up at five so it's hot and ready to go. It's learning your habits and how you interact."
In the Home of Dreams, "we're going to be able to show off a segment of that," DuBose says. "That technology's got to get a little bit better. But that's absolutely where things are going in the industry. So how do we wire? How do we set the house up? We understand that's where it's going."
The Home of Dreams will be able to interact, for example, with smart nursery systems and VitalBand from Sensogram Technologies, a Plano company that offers a fully automatic fall detection smart watch that alerts caregivers, medical professionals and family members if you fall or are in distress. VitalBand also monitors vital signs - heart rate, respiratory rate and calories burned - and allows users to set medication reminders, calendar alerts and fitness goals.
Similarly, smart nursery technologies allow parents, for example, to watch their sleeping babies with video and vital sign monitoring. "When you look over, you see the baby, and you also see a little tiny green dot on your control panel letting you know all the vital signs are good; the baby's resting well," DuBose said.
Home of Dreams 2018
Fort Worth Magazine teams with the finest builders, designers and vendors to build our long-running series of Dream Homes and Homes of Dreams. Here are our partners that have signed on so far for our 2018 Home of Dreams in Westlake.
Builder and interior designer:PentaVia Custom Homes
Interior designer:The Design Center/Western Heritage Furniture
Roof: Texas Tile Roofing
Gutters and downspouts:Loveless Gutters
Stone materials: Metro Brick and Stone Co.
Stucco: Centurion Stone
Foam insulation: Red Oak Insulation
Iron front gate: Durango Doors
Floors, hardwood and carpet: Vintage Floors
Tile material: Daltile
Cabinets: Mike Conkle's Custom Cabinets
Countertops: KLZ Stone
Audio/video/security: H. Customs Audio Video
Light fixtures and plumbing:Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery
Fireplace inserts: Trinity Hearth & Home
Door and cabinet hardware:Pierce Fine Decorative Hardware and Plumbing
Appliances and accessories: The Jarrell Co.
Interior painting and wallpaper: J&V Painting
Paint materials: Sherwin-Williams
Landscaping: Guardado Landscaping
Deco pavers: Whiz-Q Stone
Kitchen cabinets: The Kitchen Source
Countertop fabrication: Absolute Stone
Fencing: Magnolia Fence
