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The Carter Home

This isn’t the first time the Carter family has lived in Riss Lake, and it isn’t the first time they have had a home featured on the Symphony Guild’s Homes of Note Tour. But this is the first time this home will be decorated top to bottom for Christmas and included in the benefit tour for the Kansas City Symphony.

Christmas is Jan Carter’s favorite holiday. She decorates at least four big trees and a few little ones every year. With assistance from her husband, Sam, it takes a couple weeks to get the entire home ready for the holidays.

Decorating for the holidays is a labor of love for the Carters, and they are good at it. Those who toured their home in Tremont (it was on the Homes of Note Tour in 1993) and friends who spent time in their other home in Riss Lake or their home at The National will agree they are not only skilled at creating a beautiful look for the holidays, but they are as experienced as some designers at turning a house into a warm and inviting home.

Comfortable EJ Victor furniture and collections of Flo Blue English porcelain grace the home, as well as accents from Mackenzie-Childs. A pair of stained glass windows featuring Shakespearean characters Puck and Bottom from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” are displayed in the hearth room. The Carters purchased them from an antique dealer, but they were originally in a European tavern and appear to be at least 150 years old.

Because the Carters wanted to purchase a home in Arizona, they sold their 9,000-square-foot home at The National about two and a half years ago. They are still looking for the “perfect” smaller home in Kansas City so they will still have a residence close to their daughters and five grandchildren who live in the area. In the meantime, they purchased this former model home from Don Julian and then proceeded to finish the lower level and decorate the rest of the home to their taste.
They called upon experts who have helped with the previous homes and are now like family. Designer Spencer Scanlan collaborated with Jan to achieve the final product. Stephen Rigdon of Patina supplied his magic artistry on the main level.

Family members also chipped in to help as the Carters completed the lower level. Their middle daughter and her partner own Sienna, a professional interior finishing company. When they aren’t guiding fly-fishing expeditions on the Snake River in Idaho, they make their living in Kansas City by creating beautiful faux finishes. They created decorative finishes for the lower level, including the “stone” cellar exterior of the wine room. Exterior landscaping was completed by Miller’s Landscaping and Lawncare.

Though it seems the home is now complete, “Our homes are never finished,” Jan comments. “We are constantly getting new ideas.”

The Julian Home

If you want true craftsmen to create exceptional detail and artistry, you can’t rush them.”  That’s how builder/developer Don Julian explains the five years it took him to build his personal residence in the gated West Shore Estates of Riss Lake.

Constructed in a style known as Mizner Mediterranean, the home features a barrel tile roof, textured stucco walls, quatrefoil windows, numerous columns,arches and a sculptured metal and glass entry door symbolizing infinity. Once Homes of Note attendees enter that door, they’ll find a home that blends the finest  in Old World craftsmanship with 21st-century homebuilding technology.

The grand entry is flanked by the music room and the formal dining room. A graceful curved staircase glides to the lower level, while the view straight ahead is the solarium with its twin koi ponds, a freeform pool, spa and stone-accented bar. The entire 5,000-square-foot area is enclosed in glass. It is the largest solarium constructed by Sunshine Rooms of Wichita, and it took a year and a half to complete. Don specified special tinting and argon-filled, low-E glass panels and even had most of the glass etched on the inside with ceramic frit to increase the energy efficiency of the structure. The area can be accessed from a trio of curved glass doors that stack on top of each other when open.

Don and his wife, Linda, have made three trips to Italy, spent time in Florida and visited numerous suppliers at Home Builders Association conventions throughout the United States when researching the elements they wanted for their home. They worked with architect John Flournoy to create the plan, pulling together the Tuscan, Moorish and Floridian design elements. Landscaping by Miller’s Landscaping and Lawncare and masonary work by AlongeStone Masonry add to the home’s distinctive curb appeal.

Soft colors, panoramic views, tile flooring and layered finishes throughout provide the quiet dignity the Julians sought. Dramatic ceilings, like the smoked glass mirrored finish in the formal dining area, the knotty alder vault in Don’s office and the sky atrium in the entry, create memorable focal points.

In fact, it is difficult to know which focal point is more impressive. The artistic wrought iron on the staircase with its gold leaf accents, the richly carved Italian marble fireplace mantels and the glass tile dome by Stewart Langer of UroGlass Design in the kitchen all compete for the honor.

Both sides of the two-sided fireplace between the family room and the hearth room feature hand-carved Italian marble mantels with a combined weight of three tons. The mantel in the hearth room is carved with the name “Giuliani,” the ancestral name of the Julian family until Don’s grandparents immigrated from Italy to the United States through Ellis Island and changed the soft “Gi” to a “J.” They later dropped the final “i” to sound more American.

The marble mantels were glazed by painters Mike Urso and Brian Barling, who worked at the home daily for the past year and a half, creating a variety of faux finishes that were troweled, sponged, rubbed and brushed onto walls, crown mouldings, cabinets, handrails, spindles, shelving and ceilings.

Interior designer Janet Alholm has been part of the team and says this is her greatest accomplishment. She and her assistant, Erin Groover, coordinated all the colors and finishes, chose the drapery treatments and selected, as well as arranged, a house full of furniture from Madden-McFarland Interiors.

Jimmy Coiner from Media One, a home technology company, also spent more than a year at the home. He computerized the lighting, security cameras, heating and cooling systems, television, alarm system, and audio and video so every system can be controlled at any of the wireless computer monitors throughout the home or from a laptop anywhere in the world.

Don calls building the house a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and it is easy to see he was involved in every decision. And unlike the craftsmen who no longer come to work at 5900 Julian Drive each day, Don has moved his offices to a two-room suite on the east wing of the home, joining a nationwide trend of living and working under the same roof.

The Wolters Home

Entertaining 161 members of your family in your new home: priceless. That’s how Mike and Connie Wolters felt after hosting a family reunion this past July. The get-together brought in family members from both coasts and as far away as South Africa to their home in the West Shore Estates area of Riss Lake.

The gathering coincided with the 50th Jubilee of Mike’s sister’s final vows to the Order of St. Benedict at Mt. St. Scholastica in Atchison, Kan. She wanted to get her eight surviving brothers and sisters and their families together, and Mike and Connie were happy to help make it happen. Their home’s open and spacious rooms, especially the walk-out level with its bar and full kitchen, plus access to the patio, deck and pool area, provided the perfect site for this large gathering. 

They were already living in a home in Riss Lake when they heard about the proposed development on the west side of the lake. While walking in the woods with a plat map, they found their perfect lot — with an optimal view of the lake. Home construction began by clearing the trees, which they did themselves, leaving as many stately old trees as possible and positioning the pool to get the maximum amount of sun. The pool and fountain were designed by Swim Things of Blue Springs and landscaped by Embassy Lawn and Miller’s Landscaping and Lawncare. A large pavestone patio surrounds the pool and extends the length of the house.

They worked with interior designer Shannon Elley Slavens of The Design Element to modify and enhance a five-bedroom house plan. They converted two of the bedrooms to offices for Mike’s business as an investment advisor and added a sunroom on the main level and a gym in the same space on the walk-out level. 
Most of the stained wood in the home is alder. Shamrock Cabinets designed and built the cabinetry in the kitchen and bar area, as well as several built-in bookshelves and entertainment centers.

The lower level is two-tiered, housing the offices and the bar, with a complete kitchen for easy entertaining, on the first tier. A beer can collection, a 1950s Vendo Coke machine and a juke box are part of the retro look, but the juke box has hidden modern conveniences, with the ability to play CDs and music from an iPod as part of an integrated whole-house sound system. The lower tier has a game room with foosball and a pool table with a hardwood top — an accessory that comes in handy when serving food for 161 people. 

While the lower level is full of attractions, tour-goers will find the main level equally inviting. The dramatic entry starts with the gracious curve of the pavestone drive and the two-story portico.

Those who attend the tour in the evening will get a special treat. An outside accent lighting system highlights the architectural design of the house, landscaping and pool area. The uplighting on the large trees in the rear of the property is particularly interesting. Natural Accents installed the exterior lighting systems and found the results so aesthetically pleasing that they used a photo of the lighted home in their print advertising for several months.

Guests will enter the home through twin leaded glass doors designed by Gene’s Stained Glass in Riverside. The doors open to a soaring entry with columns, arches and artistic wrought iron railings. 

The formal dining room is on the right with its arch-topped china cabinet displaying antique china from Connie’s mother and a richly carved table with eight baroque chairs. The hand-painted ceiling in the room was designed by Caffy Whitney, who also did the faux  finishes in the home and a Wolters family crest above the mantel in the game room. She monogrammed the ceiling with the Wolters’ initials. On the opposite side of the entry, the richly appointed study features faux-finished walls, built-in bookshelves and a chiming wall clock that plays six different tunes. 

A formal living area with a wall of windows overlooking Riss Lake completes the frame around the entry. The kitchen and hearth room, sunroom and the master suite are also on this level. These rooms have spectacular views of the lake and remind them every day of their smart decision to build their new home.