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An Extraordinary Find In Elm Grove
If youre looking around Elm Grove for a newer home on a spectacular lot, it would be difficult to find a better buying opportunity. There are few residential lots of this size in this quaint Village which is well known in the surrounding areas as a great place to raise a family with an exceptional school system and a very close knit social community. It’s also five minutes away from the local mall and dozens of shops and restaurants, and only minutes from downtown Milwaukee. You would not expect to find a home so neatly tucked away in a small subdivision off one of the main thoroughfares that is nearly two acres in size and laid out in such a way to provide virtually complete privacy. The professionally maintained landscape is highlighted by a two-level Lannon stone patio and accented all around by stone walkways. To give you an idea of just how peaceful it is here, I was greeted by three wild turkeys when I arrived.
This nine-year-old home appears to be relatively traditional from a curbside view. Although it is clearly enhanced by more present-day art and design upgrades that could be modified if one desired, its open concept and fashionable layout will definitely suit both the contemporary and traditional buyer. Visitors enter through a solid mahogany paneled door with leaded glass sidelights into a limestone columned grand foyer with a14 foot trey ceiling. These trey-style ceilings are consistent throughout the first floor, as are the over-sized doors and walls, including the massive great room which features a ceiling more than 20 feet high. The adjacent foyer bathroom features a granite vessel sink and countertop and is typical of most of the bathrooms in the home which feature some form of granite, marble or stone.
One room that is isolated off to the right of the foyer is the master bedroom. The master bedroom has an alcove double-door entry with recessed dual-controlled lighting built into the trey ceiling above the bed area. There are also two separate doors leading out to a private balcony that offers a cozy sitting area with a great sunset view. The coolest feature of this room is not the his and her closets or anything else already mentioned, but the his and her bathrooms. We’ve all seen this concept before but not executed with this kind of flair. The masculine bathroom to the left is done in darker earth tones with a vessel sink and granite slab, inset fixtures in the mirror, cherry wood cabinetry and hewn slate flooring. The feminine side to the right is done in softer earth tones with limestone flooring and countertop, a seated vanity area with private water closet, a three-way mirror and a Jacuzzi tub. The flair is the fact that these two bathrooms each have a private shower door access leading to a shared shower room that sits directly in between the two private roomsÑa very nice touch.
Returning to the great room one can’t help but be drawn to the wall of windows looking out into the backyard. There’s a multi-dimensional mantel and hearth surrounding the natural fireplace, graced on either side of the towering wall by several limestone inlays with accent lighting. There’s also a cinder block flue and a custom-built glass screen over the fireplace and complemented by a built-in curio cabinet to the right. As gorgeous as the rest of this room is, the most eye-catching feature is the custom designed railing that guards the open balcony looking over this room from the second floor. This hand-crafted railing, finished in blued steel with an ultra-contemporary design, mimics not only the custom work completed for the hand railings heading up the staircase, but also several other fixtures and design pieces around the home.
Moving into the kitchen we find Santos Mahogany flooring supporting a two-tiered granite covered island carved into a unique diamond-like shape. When you look closely at this very well-designed kitchen, which includes a wet bar facing the great room, there are two things that stand out. First, the cabinet maker took the painstaking effort to match the grain patterns on the cherry veneer cabinets from top to bottom. Not an easy task in the least, especially with three-tiered doors in some places. The other unique feature is the open concept framework surrounding the casing of the exhaust fan over the stove. It may not sound that special, but if you like classy woodwork, the arched pattern of the wood frame is in the identical contour of the frame of the fan cover itself.
Next to the kitchen is a home office space with a continuation of the custom built rotary-cut cherry cabinets. This office area, like the great room, also leads to the Lannon stone patio outside. In the southwest corner of the home is a cedar wood-paneled three season room. With a cathedral ceiling and dŽcor-related ceiling fan, this screened-in room gives a perfectly protected view of the natural settings outside.
On our way up to the upper level we pass another powder room and then the formal dining room with a large bay window combination, a decorator chandelier and built-in universal speaker system. On the upper level, in addition to the open landing area with its seating space and built-in custom cabinetry facing the great room, we find two separate en suite bedrooms. In a space where you might otherwise find three or four bedrooms, here we have two private suites. Each suite features eleven foot vaulted ceilings, private baths with three-way mirrors and large walk-in closets.
Completing our visit, we head downstairs into the lower level walk-out basementÑalthough the term basement really doesn’t do this level justice. While it could easily double as an in-law’s quarters, it has everything else one could ask for in comfort and entertainment. The sliding patio doors lead out to the lower level stone patio and into the secluded backyard. There are two private bedrooms on one end, separated by a full bath. There’s another half bath on the other end next to a full-sized two-tiered granite top bar area with lighted glass block framework. The bar also features a hewn slate floor, glass and mirror backing, copper sink, built-in refrigerator, dishwasher and an icemaker. The entire center of the room is open. A clear span with dry-walled ceilings throughout for whatever your entertainment or hobby pleasure might be. In one of the other back corners of this level you’ll find a raised ceiling workout room complete with mirrors and rubberized flooring. In the opposite corner is a temperature and humidity controlled wine cellar finished in custom pebble flooring. And the entire level is finished off with a large-screen media area with a granite fireplace, surrounding cherry cabinets, accented with indirect lighting built into the trey ceiling.
All in all it is an extremely classy, but still very warm and livable home with all the amenities one could ask for. Some of the other extras included the home are: a motion detector controlled driveway sensor that sets off a soft alert inside the home anytime someone pulls in or out of the driveway; two seventy-five gallon water heaters with re-circulating pump; three separately controlled furnaces and air conditioners; a built-in patio grilling system; a three and one-half car finished garage with built-in floor drains; a security system and much more. This home was designed in its entirety by the current owners nine years ago, after spending their first eleven years on this exact same property in the original home that was built here. The home is currently being shown by Stephanie Brunkhorst of the First Weber Group. |
