By Emily Williams-Robertshaw
When husband-and-wife team Kevin and Leigh Misso of River Brook Design and Construction set out to create a home to inspire, the story was in the details.
The result is a true dichotomy of design. It’s a modern European design that honors the historical Hollywood community. It offers an open and airy floor plan but reads as unique rooms filled with warmth and color.
While this is Birmingham Home & Garden’s 10th Inspiration Home, the journey to finishing the project was a new experience for editor Cathy Still McGowin.
“We were excited to work with a design-build team,” she said. “In the past, we’ve worked with just an architect or just a builder, but they are the whole package.”
It makes for a more streamlined process, as the team can continue to design the home as they build, tailoring and making adjustments as the project progresses.
When Birmingham Home & Garden reached out to the Missos to design their 10th Inspiration Home, they were thrilled.
“It was such an honor to be asked,” Leigh said.
After basking in the glow of it for a moment, the work began.
“Now we have 13 months to get it done …,” Leigh said. “… In the height of a pandemic,” McGowin chimed in.
Time was crucial, but the team had a few properties in mind and landed on 306 La Prado Circle in the Hollywood neighborhood in Homewood.
The home was not only a collaboration between the publication and River Brook, but also the property’s owners, Paul and Mary Schabacker and their three children.
The existing home was torn down and plans began to create an inspiring home that fit into the community.
The Missos preferred to embrace the Spanish Colonial and English Tudor influence established in the surrounding Hollywood neighborhood.
It needed to read rustic and European, Leigh said, which is right up their alley.
“We love Europe,” she added. The couple eloped with their families and married in Venice, and old world European design has always been a major influence in their work.
Embracing the feel of many homes that established the Hollywood community, the Missos set out to bring a Spanish colonial revival into the present day with modern European influences.
The Opening Scene
The couple set out to establish their theme from the moment people see the house from the street.
“The lot was a challenge,” Leigh said. Kevin added that the front of the lot was narrower than the back, creating a kind of pie shape.
“We had a narrow front, so we thought, what if we did a parapet?” Leigh said. “Could it be a little Alys Beach?”
No, Alys Beach was too coastal.
“We didn’t just want to take a traditional modern farmhouse and stick it in Hollywood, we wanted to find a way to tie the build into the aesthetic of the neighborhood,” Leigh said.
Using Birmingham Home & Garden’s sponsors for the 2021 Inspiration Home, the Missos were able to source many materials locally. It made the difference, according to Kevin, as they didn’t have to worry about waiting for materials that were backordered due to the pandemic’s impact on manufacturing and shipping.
River Brook stuck to local vendors whenever possible and sourced materials based on availability.
“Everything really worked out great,” Kevin said. “We’re talking about 50 plus windows, doors, everything showed up on time when it was supposed to.”
Inside the home, River Brook created a space that shows the shift away from the pre-pandemic trend of fully embraced open concept living.
“When you walk through the door, we wanted you to experience the house as you walked through it,” Leigh said. “We didn’t want it to give itself away right at the beginning.”
Leigh said the limewashed stone used in the facade and parapet set the tone for the interior of the home.
Entering the front door, one meets a living area to the left while a large fireplace covered in the same stone sits on the right, creating a separation between the great room and a small office area.
“We wanted limestone, but we couldn’t fit it in the budget,” Leigh said. “How can we accomplish the same look without sacrificing the aesthetic?”
The stone is also used in the second fireplace in the outdoor living area in the backyard.
While there are no doors, the kitchen and dining areas are sectioned off and the eye is drawn all the way to the back of the living area where a staircase leads upstairs and a foyer creates a path to the home’s private side entrance and courtyard, then to the master suite.
“I don’t know if the open floor plan will ever go away because it is so family friendly, but the way River Brook handled it creates individual spaces with their own signature style and personality,” McGowin said.
Designers created unique experiences in each room that remain cohesive, she said.
Setting the Scene
One of Leigh’s passions is the creativity in the work, how the design of the home evolves and adapts throughout the building process. She is also the design liaison for the project.
“We wanted it to be all about the natural material,” Leigh said.
She wanted to let the materials speak for themselves, like the flooring used throughout the living area sourced locally from Evolutia.
“We have worked with them on several projects,” Leigh said. “They salvage old wood, beams, you name it from barns, houses, all over and then they rehab it and use it for other purposes.”
Easily accessible in North Birmingham, the company’s warehouse had a treasure trove of reclaimed white oak flooring.
An eclectic look was created by using differing plank sizes and keeping the sanding light to reveal the natural flaws in the wood.
“I wanted to have some character in it,” Leigh said. “I wanted to see the knots. I wanted to see that this was old wood that has beauty and let the truth of the honest materials speak for themselves, not make them look like something else.”
While the floors make a big impact, the light finish creates a cohesive and neutral base.
The home has two butler’s pantries, one off the dining room. Leigh knew they wanted to do a marble slab finish up the back wall to show off the 10-foot ceilings and didn’t want it to be hidden from view.
She had sourced three sets of antique French doors and used one to create a path of sight in the wall separating the pantry and dining area. Then she put the other set in the wall between the dining area and the office.
“It brings you into an office that looks on to the dining room and then through to this gorgeous butler’s pantry,” Leigh said.
When you sit at the dining table, there are views of the stone in the butler’s pantry as well as the full marble slab covering the back wall of the kitchen, the heart of the home.
Culminating at the Kitchen
The kitchen is homeowner Mary Schabacker’s baby. She loves to cook.
Inspiration was drawn from the most important feature of the kitchen, the silver and gold La Cornue range, which presents a heavy European look. Next to it is a deck-mounted pot filler faucet, as Leigh didn’t want to break up the marble with a wall-mounted piece.
A window installed above the range provides natural light. It’s something unexpected, Leigh said.
“You don’t typically have windows behind your range, so we decided to use this new hood from Wolf that is seamless,” Leigh said.
The ceiling-mounted hood is so seamless one would imagine it’s too far above to properly vent, but Kevin can attest to its functionality.
“You don’t want to wear a toupée around that,” he joked.
Throughout the space, the goal was to hide everything. A wall of white oak cabinets with a horizontal design hide a fridge, pantry and cabinets, with the pattern carried throughout the room along the lower cabinets.
On the opposing wall, a blank space is filled by an abstract piece by artist Joe Turner as well as a modern glass display cabinet with steel door frames and a marble backsplash.
“Kitchens are looking less utilitarian and more a part of the living space,” Leigh said. “We wanted to elevate it while modernizing it.”
Keeping the focus on the stone wall, large waterfall island and range, there are no upper cabinets.
“This house, to me, out of all of the houses we have ever done, has the most beautiful tile and stone package we have ever seen,” McGowin said.
Crafting the Set
“We wanted all of the designers to feel like they could take it to the max,” she said, “follow their heart, not what somebody else was telling them.”
McGowin said the designers never fail to impress her when the final product is revealed. This year, she sees a divergence from a longstanding minimalist trend.
“Especially in the master, it reads more is more,” she said.
The design is filled with antiques and found objects, which McGowin sees as a growing trend alongside sourcing locally.
There’s also the powder room.
“It’s a bathroom,” Leigh said. “It’s a space that is necessary, but we wanted to figure out how to make it unassuming.”
So, it was tucked into a wall off the kitchen and dining area with a hidden door flush with the wall.
“We have to build all of that custom,” Leigh said. “So, our River Brook team built that door by hand.”
But even if it was hidden, Leigh had no intention of creating a run-of-the-mill powder room.
“You’re used to seeing a vanity and a mirror,” Leigh said. “Why? Why does it have to be that way?
“How do we make it more than a vanity and toilet. How do we make it a room you want to be in?” she added.
High-quality, natural stones sourced from Triton Stone Group set the tone throughout the home, including the powder room’s vanity.
The powder room is now exciting, Leigh said. The hidden door opens and reveals high lacquered paint on walls covered in framed paintings, creating a wallpaper of artwork.
It is just one example that showcases how interior designers created designs that bring the build to the next level.
“Now it is a wow moment,” Leigh said.
