This “remnant” lot was among the last to be purchased in the first phase of the historically-themed, new town of Celebration, Florida due to its irregular, non-traditional footprint. Yet its prominent location at the main entrance to the new town demanded a strong and orderly home design.

The owner, of recent Italian heritage, who would live here with his elderly father, required the Italian Mediterranean Villa style, an expression far less flexible in layout than a Victorian or a Chateau theme would have been. The father required his own autonomous suite, which became the single-story, street-corner element, which he loved because of its functional and acoustical isolation.

Since the lot denied the traditional, symmetrical Villa mass, we “re-cornered” the 5,110 square foot home’s main body with an integral, recessed stair tower as a transition buttress to the father’s single-story, street-corner suite. Bold European recessed windows, precise horizontal trim, and clay roof tiles unite these otherwise disparate masses into a coherent, yet playful design.

The intrigue continues inside the recessed, uniquely classical entryway, where a radically “un-square” foyer plays down eccentrically from the second story, recessed-oculus ceiling to a seim-oculus balcony around which all second floor functions are organized. This semi-oculus balcony overhang organizes the ground floor entries to the library, the great room and the dining room—each carefully offset from the oculus center in pinwheel fashion—while the stair hugs the exterior corner of the tower. The changing play of natural sunlight defines this highly organized yet fanciful foyer, highlighted at the oculus by the center section of Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco.

Once past the great room, the floorplan winds its way back through the kitchen, breakfast, and service areas to the garage/guest suite at the far corner of the site, accessed by a rear alley. The pool Loggia links the great room, breakfast, and kitchen, and boasts a solid brick, damper-controlled, wood-burning, pizza oven, used extensively by the owner for unique entertaining.

This is probably the most unlikely house in Celebration, yet one of the most important.

Builder: Derrick Builders, Inc. Interior Finishing & Furnishing: Nadine Toomey Interior Design Photography: Martinot Multimedia

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