Jeff Roos admits that when he started planning his own residence, he was thinking like a typical production-home builder.

Roos, who is Southwest regional president of Lennar Corp., had envisioned something closer to Lennar's luxury production houses. But he ended up with a much higher level of customization and craftsmanship: a Tuscan farmhouse rich with natural materials and hand-hewn finishes and details.

The formal facade of this Tuscan farmhouse allows glimpses of the interior via low walls and an entry courtyard. The master bedroom deck and loggia below it provide sheltered vistas of the surrounding property. French doors and a storefront-like wall of glass are all that separate the home office from the serenity of the centtral courtyard.

After purchasing a half-acre lot in a subdivision in Irvine, Calif., Roos brought his ideas to Bassenian/Lagoni Architects in Newport Beach, Calif., which had designed high-end homes for Lennar. He encouraged them to incorporate some of the same concepts applied to Lennar homes, such as interior courtyards and covered loggias.

The subdivision has strict design guidelines, including height limits, a requirement of less square footage on the second floor than on the first, and architectural mandates for certain sites (Roos' lot required a Tuscan style). Architect Kevin Karami created plans and elevations for a Tuscan-inspired, 1½-story home of 5,791 square feet.

"This architecture is about simplicity," says Karami. "The building materials are indigenous to the Tuscan hillside." Controlled openings (arches, glass and see-through fireplaces) separate the spaces, but exterior materials are carried through to the inside, and vice versa, to eliminate any boundary between the indoors and outdoors.

In Tuscany, he explains, the farmhouses take advantage of hilly topography. "Jeff Roos' site has some slopes, which is why we designed two courtyards on different levels," Karami says. The low-pitched roof is dominated by gable ends.

A formal façade of brick, stone and stucco permits glimpses of the forecourt (entry courtyard). Single-level wings to the front of the plan include a mixture of public and private spaces: a home office, game room and guest quarters. Toward the rear, the remainder of the first-floor rooms (kitchen, morning room, dining room, living room, family room and home theater) radiate from a rotunda and curved staircase leading to the second floor. The second floor houses the master suite and two secondary bedroom suites.

"A true Tuscan home is, I think, designed and built over time, so there really aren't huge volume spaces — they're more intimate," says Roos. Although his home easily accommodates large gatherings, smaller groups aren't overwhelmed by cavernous rooms.

Almost every room interacts with the courtyard. One of Roos' favorite spots is the covered courtyard between the game room and home theater. It's outfitted with a fireplace, flat-screen TV and music system. "Once upon a time I was going to have a combination game room and home theater, but it turned into two rooms with the covered courtyard between them," he says.

Interior designer Dana Blower of Dana Blower Designs in Costa Mesa, Calif., extensively researched Tuscan farmhouses and convinced Roos his home should be as authentic as possible. Blower bought antique Spanish parefeuille tile a year ahead of time for flooring; the centuries-old terra cotta tiles were recycled from old buildings. For the master bedroom ceiling, arches and barrel ceilings in the entry hall, she specified antique French parefeuille tile, blending it with the same stone used on the exterior. The wood beams on the flat ceilings are also typical of the Tuscan genre.

An island kitchen and morning room, visible in the background, take in views. Interior designer Dana Blower specified 3-by3-inch antique terra cotta tile, arranged like a shingled roof, for the range hood.

Grant Fluegge of Custom Home Development in Ladera Ranch, Calif., acted as general contractor and construction manager. Fluegge cites the lot's elevation changes, including the steps from the entry court down to the central courtyard, as a challenge in this project, a factor that affected the construction of the concrete foundation as well as the framing.

An even bigger challenge became the copious use of old and recycled materials in a new-construction environment. "Some of the brick paving materials on the interior were hard to get and hard to install just because of the sizes," Fluegge says. "And the ceiling beams are real beams pulled out of old barns; they're not just a fake veneer. We had to treat them, put them up and support them properly."

Unlike his other projects, which were mostly smaller, off-the-shelf plans, the Roos home required substantial planning. There were three- or four-month lead times on certain materials, such as the limestone fireplace surrounds, shipped from the Greek island of Cyprus. Fluegge had to find specialty tradespeople to do the tile work on the barrel arches and the wall and cabinet finishes. As Blower can attest, working with antique parefeuille tile in the barrel ceilings was very time-consuming because each tile had to be cut and chipped to make it look even older.

Blower added several fireplaces, including one in the kitchen and a two-sided fireplace on the loggia. The latter space can be accessed from the living room, dining room and morning room and overlooks the swimming pool.

Imported Italian tiles serve as accents on the stair risers and the family room fireplace.

In the bathrooms, Blower chose an exterior Venetian stucco finish for the shower walls instead of tile. "It's easy to make mistakes when you do tile [shower surrounds] with the borders and the criss-cross and all that," she says. "This is a cleaner look."

One room, which was originally going to be a bedroom, was changed to a home office. Blower made a daring choice for the office floors — 18-by-18-inch leather squares — admitting she had to talk Roos into going along with the idea. "He eventually became very comfortable with it."

Fluegge trained at Lennar after getting a college degree in construction management and worked for the company for approximately five years before going out on his own. "To be able to work with someone who is in the industry is a big thing," he says. "[Jeff] understands subcontractor issues such as delays. He also had a little pull because some of the trades who were working on the home also worked for big builders like Lennar, and he could sometimes get things done quicker."

The home took about a year to finish. "'Twice as long and twice as much' — that's the rule with custom home building," Roos chuckles. "But Dana did a fabulous job of articulating my vision. She pushed me to stretch out of my comfort zone on certain things, and I'm very happy with the direction in which she took it."