Posted: Thu, 10 May 2018 10:08 AM - 50,045 Readers
By: Erin Quinn-Kong | Photos by Andrea Calo
"This isn’t my house,” declared Shantel Ferdman, a
stay-at-home mom of three (Annie, 18; Adam, 15; and Rebecca, 13) upon
touring a 6,800-square-foot home overlooking Lake Austin in spring 2015.
It was a phrase she would repeat over and over again, even after her
family, who was moving from Houston to Austin, voted 3-2 to buy the
1.9-acre property in Rob Roy—one of only two in the neighborhood with
direct access to Lake Austin, complete with a tram and private boat
dock.
“The house was beautiful; nothing was bad,” she says. “It was just
very formal and had lots of smaller rooms, and I prefer more casual and
open.”
“When we were house-hunting,” adds her businessman husband David, “we
were hoping to accomplish several things: being on the lake, in a great
neighborhood, with a great view. Shantel didn’t like the design
perspective of the house, but we were thrilled with the other things.
Once she determined she had a good vision of what she wanted, we went
for it.”
Shantel can joke about disliking the two-story, five-bedroom,
seven-bathroom home now, but it took a gut job of the interior for her
to get to that place. After living in the home for three months, the
Ferdmans enlisted CG&S Design-Build
and project architect Joanna Hartman to do the remodel, which started
out as a refresh of the home’s living areas but quickly became a
yearlong project of revamping almost the entire interior of the house,
including removing 16 stone columns, opening up and redefining the
kitchen, dining room and several living spaces, and adding a wine room
and piano hall, which required both a new septic system and
restructuring of the original front door.
“When I met Shantel, she said, ‘I don’t like this house,’” Hartman
says with a laugh. “That changed about three-quarters of the way through
construction. For her, it was purely a stylistic reflex.” Once Shantel
realized how well she worked with Hartman on the bigger structural
issues of the house, she started asking the architect for furniture and
design recommendations as well.
Instead
of the clean, modern look that’s so popular right now, Shantel’s
aesthetic can be described as casual French elegance. “My background
influences what I like,” she says. “I’m from Louisiana, so I like
reclaimed wood and design that is rugged-looking and casual but also
elegant.”
Adds Hartman, “Shantel appreciates ornamentation and fancy details
with a modern take. She likes things that aren’t shiny and new and
designs you don’t see everywhere. It was fun for me to reach outside my
normal bubble and develop her vision.”
Shantel and Hartman worked very closely together, collaborating on
the look of every inch of the home. “She had in her head what she was
aiming for and could articulate it and has a great eye, but there was a
lot of guess and check on my part,” says Hartman. “While she had a
vision and would bring photos to me, she wanted something she hadn’t
seen before.”
Adds Shantel, “Working with Joanna was refreshing because she didn’t mind being daring and stepping out from the trend.”
The overall look of the home’s decor is warm and neutral, with
eye-catching design elements including reclaimed timber ceiling beams,
watercolor wallpaper, antique mirrors, gas lanterns, colorful print Tabarka Studio
tiles on the staircase and in bathrooms, and a custom-made handrail for
the staircase.
But the duo didn’t shy away from including several
showstopping pops of color throughout the house, including navy island
cabinets in the kitchen, a sunflower-yellow vanity in a guest bathroom,
bold blue chairs in the dining room and a mix of buttery yellow walls
and red cabinetry in Shantel’s office.
“It sounds crazy, but it works,” says Shantel. “The ceilings are tall, so I felt like the rooms could handle it.”
Hartman also made sure to include practical elements throughout the
house for the busy Ferdmans, including a laundry chute, rolling library
ladders in the wine room and pantry and two dishwashers in the kitchen,
since the family entertains so frequently.
Asked to name her favorite spaces in the house now, Shantel has
several, including the pantry, the open-concept kitchen and family room
and the wine room area.
“The pantry reminds me of my grandmother’s pantry. It’s kind of set
up like an old mercantile store,” she says. “It has floor-to-ceiling
shelves, so I can store platters, toasters, food, everything.”
The family often congregates in the kitchen and family room to have meals, do homework and watch TV.
“We’ve never had a kitchen and family room that was open before,”
says Shantel. “That is the one thing we knew we’d love, and it has
definitely proven true.” And the Ferdmans also enjoy spending time in
the bar, wine room and den that was added off the foyer. “We use that
room way more than we thought we would,” says Shantel. “That was a
surprise. It’s nice and dark, so it’s conducive to good movie watching.”
The other perks of the home, including a swimming pool, several
outdoor seating areas, a home gym and the proximity to the lake, cannot
be discounted. Shantel and Adam often take early-morning fishing
excursions on the lake before school, while David, Annie and Rebecca
love to jet-ski and stand-up paddleboard off their private dock.
Two years and a remodel later, Shantel can’t say enough good things
about this home, which is now clearly hers. “The whole thing is a
showpiece to me,” she says. “It truly is the best house for our family.
We entertain here often, both with the kids and with adults, and our
kids want to be here, so it’s a gem in that regard. It turned out
exactly how we wanted.”
