CONTEMPORARY AND COMFY
Contemporary and Comfy
A modern vision for a family
By Deborah Salomon • Photographs by John Gessner
If you think an interior designer’s house should knock your socks off, you’d be right. Especially a designer with international credentials who conceived the house from the ground up and the studs out.
The designer is Liz Valkovics. The location is lakeside, in a gated Pinehurst golf community. The exterior is Carolina casual to blend with surroundings but inside is a magazine layout, contemporary in vision, curated for practicality, incorporating an ice bath and sauna for daily use and wellness events, a ground-level game room with pool table, movie screen, guest quarters and kitchenette. Because . . . sophistication notwithstanding, this house is also home to Luke, 11, Sophie, 4, and golden retriever Gus, whose fur matches the oatmeal-textured low-slung sofa in front of the glowing tubular fireplace. The result: stunning yet comfortable for a young family.
“The kids don’t have to be too careful,’’ Liz says.
Over the mantel a frame surrounds the wall-mounted TV. The whole equals a study in earth tones with a generous nod to black, from set-in houndstooth rugs to matte charcoal kitchen cabinets and a matching Hallman (Italian) six-burner range with a grill top, where Luke and Sophie make pancakes on weekends. Even the quartzite countertops — hard as granite, beautiful as marble — have undulating waves of gray. “I’ve done a purple kitchen but this was for us, no clutter, happy and inviting,” Liz says.
Liz paints. Her choice of art, some digitally achieved, is wide ranging. A computer program that moves furnishings within a room and performs other diagnostics aid her decorating decisions. She studied and taught art, became a full-time painter, and earned a degree from the London School of Interior Design. Her specialty: hospitality venues, restaurants and commercial space. The jewel in her crown is a boutique hotel in Dubai, although she also served as creative director for a Florida hotel, worked in Baku, Azerbaijan, and undertook design projects at London’s Gatwick Airport.
Her husband, Paul, a British national, traveled the world in operations and management of sporting events, including the summer Olympics and FIFA World Cup. He also partners in his wife’s design business. Liz is from Ohio, but she met Paul in Cape Town, South Africa, a stopover on one of life’s adventure tours.
So, with world-wide connections, why choose Pinehurst for home base?
Simple. “My parents retired here,” Liz says. And it doesn’t hurt that Paul and Luke are enthusiastic golfers.
Liz and Paul absorbed the cosmopolitan feel of the area while renting a golf-front condo during their home’s construction year. It enabled Liz to participate in day-to-day decisions like the high windows and window seats flanking the living room fireplace — a space usually filled by bookcases. “It’s perfect for curling up with a book and a glass of wine,” she says. Look up: Some ceiling fixtures feature circles of small round globes, “like golf balls,” she smiles. Almost all furnishings are new, sourced from her international and High Point providers.
Some pieces qualify as both unusual and practical, like the elongated dining room table positioned on a pedestal for comfortable seating. The table is set against a wall lined with a wipe-clean leather banquette. A bench opposite provides flexible seating, while Mom and Pop chairs at either end, now reupholstered in a wild abstract, come from Liz’s family. Over the table is a row of smallish paned windows with black frames, a Liz signature throughout the house. This fluid seating arrangement in a modest space has accommodated a dozen at Thanksgiving.
Sophie’s room and the master suite opening onto a deck overlooking the lake complete the main floor, with Sophie’s bathroom doubling as a powder room.
If the main floor illustrates how Liz interprets contemporary icons, the lower level — opening onto the patio and grill — has what Liz calls a “playful feel,” beginning with the pool table. Luke’s quarters are there along with a guest room and the office for Liz’s design business. Shelves hold all the classic board games.
Here, Liz has adopted Paul’s favorite green, reminiscent of his Yorkshire childhood, on kitchenette cabinets. True, it is more jalapeño than mint, but still a pleasant surprise. Nearby stands another relic from relatives, a velvet-upholstered settee, poised as if it’s awaiting the arrival of a time-traveling Louis XIV. Wellness devotees, Liz and Paul’s home gym occupies a garage bay.
Contemporary homes and their contents are often labeled cold, stark. Not here. Who would guess that this modest, creamy white cottage located on a cul-de-sac in a prime golf enclave might, beyond the front door, reveal 3,200 square feet of family-friendly space sparked with art and design, sprinkled with whimsy?
“We tried to be respectful of the area, which meant sometimes going back to the drawing board,” Paul recalls. “Our forever home? It sure is. I plan to be buried in the backyard.”
