She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [39]
Steve took a good look at Voelzel, a tall man with shoulder length white hair and a beard. Around the waist, Voelzel was nearly as broad as Steve. “Looks like you’re about my size,” Steve said. “I think we might be able to do some business.”
Voelzel laughed. “Sounds good to me,” he agreed.
With that, the two men walked the property. Steve’s lot was wooded with gnarled oaks and rough cedar that appeared as ancient and rugged as the rocky hills. Eventually, five houses would be built behind the Gardens of Westlake gate, but as yet, only one was under construction, a rustic, ranch-style house with a long front porch that recalled the Texas Hill Country. Although beautiful, it wasn’t what Steve had in mind.
“I’ve always loved Fallingwater, and I’d like something with that kind of feel,” Steve said, referring to Frank Lloyd Wright’s cantilevered design in Bear Run, Pennsylvania. Perched over a rushing mountain spring, it epitomized Wright’s concept of organic architecture, design so well integrated with its setting that it appeared unified with nature.
“This site won’t work,” Volezel said. “We need a creek.”
“Hell, can’t we build one?” Steve said with a twinkle in his eye.
Voelzel laughed. “I guess we could.”
Steve told Voelzel how he envisioned the house. He wanted a sprawling one-story, with a separate master wing and a wing for Kristina and guests. “Does your wife have some ideas? Should we include her?” Voelzel asked.
“Nah, we made a deal. I build the house and she decorates it,” he said with a grin. “You’re going to be really surprised when you meet my wife.” He then went on to say that his first wife had died just three years earlier and he’d married a “younger woman. I dated older women, but they didn’t appreciate me for what I could provide: money.”
Voelzel laughed again.
In the ensuing months, Gus worked closely with Steve, translating his ideas to paper. The two men formed a quick friendship, and the house, as it evolved, took on a contemporary look with expansive windows. The first time Voelzel met Celeste, as Steve had predicted, he was surprised. “I didn’t expect her to be quite that young. She didn’t say much,” he says. “She kind of looked over the plans and nodded.”
The one change Celeste did make was to her closet. The original plan called for cubbyholes to store three hundred pairs of shoes. “She said that would never be enough. She needed room for five hundred,” says Voelzel.
As Gus designed it, visitors walked up three short flights of stairs to reach double stained-glass front doors set into a panel of glass. Squared columns held up a wide overhang, and, emanating from a backyard koi pond, a man-made stream bubbled out from beneath the house and ran along the front flower beds into two large ponds.
Inside, the house fanned out in a U from the entry to a full 5,800 square feet. Walking straight ahead, one entered a grand living room with a high coffered ceiling. Three steps up to the right brought visitors into an elaborate gourmet kitchen and dinette area that overlooked the koi pond. The fireplace, entrance, and walls leading into the dining room and kitchen were constructed of the same Golden Arkansas ledge stone as much of the exterior. The master wing, three steps up from the living room to the left, housed Steve’s office, a large bedroom, and a bathroom with a room-size glass shower and closets. If one walked from the entry to the right instead, there were two additional bedrooms with separate baths, one for Kristina, the other a guest room.
On the blueprint, Steve had concerns. “He wanted the living room bar as a command post,” says Gus. “He wanted to serve drinks and look out at a party. Steve was a people person, he liked seeing people happy, and he wanted to see them enjoying his house.”
When Voelzel estimated a seven-figure price tag to build the house, Steve sucked in a whistle. “I’m going to need a really big credit card for this,” he joked. A week later at lunch, Gus gifted him with the house floor plan shrunk down and