Home By Design

Initially, though, the couple wanted one freestanding structure that incorporated the family’s desire for a guest/pool house, pottery area, and woodshop as well as an outdoor entertaining area and a place for water sports. “Our initial concern,” says Veltman, “was how do you manage all these different activities in one dwelling?” After seeing the first plan, the couple and Veltman immediately knew that it didn’t quite fit the dynamic family’s needs. Before heading back to the drawing board, Veltman suggested that instead of one property, the couple consider three separate dwellings, each with its own purpose. The coupled agreed.

Soon, the Smiths were signing off on a plan that utilized the property’s amazing views. Veltman also designed a terrace complete with an infinity pool overlooking the bay, which all three dwellings look into. The new plan took advantage of the layout of the property by creating one focal point. “We broke it apart and turned it into three smaller structures,” says Veltman of the second plan. “It made it much more versatile. It became more manageable to define the different spaces and activities. It gave us so many more options.”

The property’s location on the Gulf Coast gave the couple rightful concerns about potential hurricanes. To assuage their worries, Veltman designed each dwelling with hurricane proofing in mind; the entire property, says Veltman, can be locked down and closed up within a few minutes. The main pool house structure is stone, while the other two—containing a pottery barn and a wood shop—are concrete construction clad in plank siding. The roof on all three dwellings is a tough corrugated aluminum.

After eight months of construction (and one hurricane), the structures and outdoor living area were finally complete. Veltman brought the roofline down “to break the rules a bit and make things a bit more whimsical,” he says of the untraditional look of the dwellings. “The point was to bring the scale down so you weren’t overwhelmed with the structure. And we wanted to do something that was very unconventional. It really animated the house.”

The guest/pool house is the centerpiece to the property. Featuring a kitchen, a stunning stone walk-in shower, a living room, and glorious views of the bay, the upscale cottage-style space is where, Sylvia says, she goes to relax and read, while on other occasions the couple entertains and the kids have their friends over to stay.

Not wanting to compromise style with functionality, the Smiths wanted an area where they could enjoy their hobbies of ceramics and woodworking but within a moment’s notice transform the entire property into a sophisticated terrace and alfresco living space perfect for entertaining. “The family is very active in hobbies, but they still have a very keen sense of style,” explains Veltman of the choice to have a pottery and craftsman barn that would also function as entertaining spaces. “Even a craftsman barn where Mike’s doing work is still very stylish. The Smiths believe that some of the best spaces are the ones where you work. Within moments, all three dwellings can be turned into a great entertaining area.”

To create an outdoor living space that’s conducive to entertaining, Veltman designed a freestanding pizza oven in the terrace area. Drawing from Boldt Castle’s famous old-world aesthetic, Veltman created an oven that appears to be made from the ruins of a previous structure. “The idea,” he says, “is that if you were to stumble upon this property, it might suggest at one point in time it may have been part of another structure but was salvaged and is now a pizza oven.”

Today, the couple and their two teenagers spend much of their time on the property working in the craftsman or pottery barn, swimming in the pool, and entertaining friends as the family did this past Christmas during an outdoor holiday party. Says Sylvia, “We really just wanted it to be a fun gathering place.”