Interior Elegance in Cornhusker Country

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Natural stone and walnut finishes contribute to this contemporary home, built in the Elkhorn River Valley near three ponds. Nebraska railway stations inspired the architectural design, which project designer Pesavento describes as “characteristic [of] the Nebraska landscape—a very natural feel,” as per the client’s request.

The designers strove to incorporate fine indoor living with a natural outdoor environment for the client, a young family seeking sophistication and room to entertain. “The home has gorgeous outdoor living spaces: a pool, screened in porches, and patios,” Pesavento says. “It was really furnished and designed to live as well externally as internally, which I think they very much enjoy, as they are outdoor people.”

The custom home, which has collected a couple of design awards—including the BALA Room of the Year Award for its kitchen and the ASID Chapter Project Award in the Residential Over 3,500 Square Feet category—since its completion, is unique of its own accord. And Pesavento believes the heart of the home’s one-of-a-kind feel stems from the level of trust the designers were able to establish with the client, which gave them the freedom to be creative. “When you get a client that has the trust and allows you to do those kinds of things, we as designers create our best designs,” Pesavento says.

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Aspen, Colorado, was in the mind of this home’s owner, who sought out Interiors Joan and Associates for the design of a weekend residence that would ride the fine line between rugged sophistication and casual comfort. And his vision wasn’t fleeting; he went to the firm with a magazine photo of an Aspen retreat in hand.

“The photo became a guide for the project’s design concept, as the logs, stones, front portico, balcony, and lighting are all things you would see if you drove through Aspen,” project designer Ellen Turnage says. “To create the realistic ambiance, the builder brought in three semi-loads of logs from Oregon and two semi-loads of Colorado moss stone.”

As for the rest of the house—which boasts a wine room, a theater, an entertainment loft, three private bedroom suites, a bunkhouse for the homeowner’s teenage son, and a lookout tower—it is fitted with hand-scraped, five-inch alder-plank flooring, which runs throughout the home’s common living spaces. The Aspen motif is further accentuated with a palette of earth tones (sumac red, bark, spruce, and black), leather and mohair for the furnishings, and an eight-foot-wide, antler-filled chandelier hanging in the great room—“a perfect scale and fit for the room’s grand 37-foot ceilings.” Turnage says.

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When it comes to aesthetically softening a room’s look, bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. According to project designer Diane Gernstein, the rooms within the contemporary-themed Linden Estates were so spacious and grand that making them cozy and inviting proved to be quite a challenge. But, with careful selection of area rugs, artwork, and light fixtures, Gernstein found the right textures and colors to convey the warmth the homeowners sought.

As with so many of Interiors Joan and Associates’s clientele, the owners of the Linden Estates had an idea about how to get where they wanted to go with their home’s interior design, but they had neither the time nor the resources to make it happen on their own. “They have a lot more exposure [to design concepts],” designer Nancy Pesavento says. “But they don’t have the professional training to accomplish making their project really spectacular.”

That, of course, is where designers such as Gernstein step in, doing more detail work for a design project than most would ever give them credit for. “You take on a heavy load because things are very technical, very costly, and you have to make big decisions for your clients,” Pesavento says. “We’re always trying to reach for that next level with them.”

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When a kitchen needs to serve multiple purposes for a family and fails to serve any of them, a renovation is critical. Such was the case with the Linden Wood home, which was in dire need of a larger kitchen that would better accommodate daily living while also serving as the perfect space for entertaining.

“My involvement in the space planning and specifying of materials and finishes for this project was extensive,” project designer Beth Settles says. In addition to a large island, which provides both seating and cooking space, the new and greatly improved Linden Wood kitchen features chrome hardware and light fixtures (contrasting a color palette Settles describes as “monochromatic tans, chocolate, and gold—accented with a pop of sapphire blue”), glass tile with a metallic sparkle, birch cabinets with a dark custom stain, contrasting colors of granite, and a hickory-wood floor.

“And spice racks were cleverly hidden in the cabinets that define the cook top area,” Settles adds, noting also that an induction cooktop, recessed into the countertop, provides a flush transition between the two surfaces.

“Every detail of this project was planned with meticulous care,” Settles says, “to create a finished space that would achieve the purpose and encompass the look that my client envisioned.” ABQ