A Bolder Home Design

A comfortable blend of Old Tahoe and the Arts-and-Crafts style, its exterior is lovingly adorned with nostalgic shingle siding, sturdy wrought iron and an intriguing array of windows. Its interior sprawls across 4,200 square feet of living space, with every room opening to a patio, deck or balcony for fabulous views of the lake and trees.

The home is situated on more than an acre of sloping land, with 124 feet of lake frontage, and beautiful landscaping that blends with native vegetation. The home's proud owners, George and Erin Tsaconas, enjoy pointing to one of the more unusual and striking features of the home: its integration of granite boulders left largely undisturbed on the land. Visitors might be startled to see boulders actually "invading" the interior of the home. During construction, the boulders were moved as little as possible, to accommodate George's keen respect for them. "Everything has its place in nature. We didn't want to violate the structure of thelot."

More than just a statement of good will toward boulders, the home bears testament to careful planning, open-minded design and attention to detail. But the path to perfection didn't come easily.

In 1992, George and Erin decided to leave the city life of Oakland for the blissful prospects of life in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They assumed it would be easy to find a beautiful new house and just move right in, so they sold their 50-year-old home and took a gamble on finding a suitable home in Nevada.

Convinced early in their search that they would have to create the home of their dreams, they began to search for a lot rather than a built home. Erin recalls, "On a snowy day in April we were pointed in the direction of a new listing in Crystal Bay. It was on the water with a slope to the lake and a flat pad to build on, a foundation already started and some wonderful, Stonehenge-looking boulders nestled on it. We knew we'd found 'the location,' and that a combination of Old Tahoe and the Arts-and-Crafts styling we grew up with in the Bay was the only design for this site."

In order to do everything just right, exhaustive research was next on the agenda. Erin explains, "My approach to the design was to subscribe to every home magazine and tear out pictures of what I liked."

And that's not all she subscribed to. She subscribed to two schools of thought she found during the planning process.

First she read A Pattern Language, written by several architecture professors and experts, which "addresses how people live; private spaces as well as well-working common areas; how to bring light into all rooms; the importance of clear pathways and flow through rooms; the wonder of hidden spaces for children; and so much more."

Erin was especially drawn to discussions of a couple's realm, a children's realm, and having common areas at the heart of the home. It was important to Erin that arriving guests and family members not have to go down a long hall to arrive at a view. In the common areas, the placement of the fire was crucial.

The second school of thought Erin subscribed to was feng shui, the Chinese art of placement. "Taking with me the elements of feng shui I felt most important to the harmony of raising our family here, I began to do interior layouts, keeping in mind we had an existing foundation to work with."

Choices of colors and materials centered around George and Erin's desire to build a completely healthy and natural house. Unfortunately, the challenges of first obtaining and then affording the materials gave Erin the sickening feeling that the Tsaconas family wouldn't be as healthy as they would have liked.

"However," says Erin, "my husband, being the contractor on the job, came in strong with his opinions when it counted, and insisted that we spend the extra money to have all the walls done in plaster rather than traditional tape and texture, and we decided to put pigment into the plaster rather than paint over it. The subtle changes in color and texture are an aesthetic pleasure on a daily basis! And we feel good about the many hidden advantages of plaster: it's a good insulation, it's slow to burn and a good soundproofing material."

Erin decorated an entire room with ferns imprinted in the plaster, and in the living room she created a relief frieze from molds in the shape of aspen leaves.

Windows were another integral factor. "We wanted lots of light and dramatic views of Lake Tahoe," says Erin. To create the desired effect, they used a combination of standard and custom windows.

Like the natural light that streams unhindered through the home, uniqueness flows from each room and tumbles down each hall. Says Erin, "I felt strongly that if I was building a custom home for us, each space would be unique to the person. My daughter's room is very feminine, with lace and trompe l'oeil paintings of wildflowers and fairies. My son's room is paneled with pine that I distressed to look very Old Southwest, and has a western, cowboy theme to it. The master suite has peach-and-cream-toned marble, columns in the bath, and a Greco-Roman feeling to it.

"The common areas of the house are a blend of contemporary and Arts-and-Crafts styling, with light woods, tiles and granite, both polished and rough. This shows particularly in our powder room, which was built over a huge outcropping of boulders, which now hold the sink and have a window spanned between."

While some new home builders seem to care little for the land on which their home is to rest, Erin sees their endeavor as an attempt to harmonize with nature. She draws attention to the boulders around which the home was built. One was nicely integrated into the design as part of a massive granite winding stairway to the upper floor. She says, "The boulders have been here for eons. We love them! They were meant to be."

Erin summarizes the entire construction process:

"We have been thrilled to find so many talented artisans and craftspeople to work on what is no longer 'the job site' or 'the house,' but 'The Art Project' now known as 'The Boulders.' "

Enthusiasm for the project resonates in George and Erin, and they're not alone. The home's first public appearance, at the 1997 AIBD* & HomeStyles Design Competition in San Francisco, garnered it the Designer's Choice award and First Place in the Custom Luxury category (4,001-5,000 sq. ft.).

The story of the Tsaconas family and their award-winning home ends on a high note, since everything worked out well for them and the land upon which they built their dream. It's a safe bet the Tsaconas family will be happy for many years in The Boulders.