Local Resident Builds Italian-Style Home
Writer / Christy Heitger-Ewing
Photography Provided
After many trips to Italy as well as frequent visits to Scottsdale, Arizona, John Turek was inspired to build a Tuscan-Mediterranean home in McCordsville that encompasses architecture from both locales. He sketched the design for the 7,093-square-foot home on airplane napkins, and began erecting his dream home in 2005.
“The Tuscan-Mediterranean style is a radical departure from what everybody builds,” Turek says. “This is a custom lot, so why build what’s basically a larger tract home? I thought, ‘I’m shooting the moon. I’m going to build something amazing and special.’”
That he did. Turek, who started out as a draftsman when he was 14 years old, erected a five-bedroom, six-bath home in the Springs of Cambridge that boasts 12’ ceilings on the first floor and 9’ ceilings on the lower-level walkout.
“The custom cabinets, as well as everything in this house, is oversized,” Turek says.
There’s even a fountain inside the home, opposite the dining room, to create ambiance. The round dining room table, an 8’ slab of granite from Denver wholesale granite from Granite Liquidators, is built on a custom base, and its shape was purposeful so as to not have any hierarchy to the table.
Faux painting throughout the home creates a different theme in every room. Ornate chandeliers adorn the rooms, enhancing those unique themes. The house includes a radiant floor heating system inside the home, in the garages and on the driveways. In addition, hardwood flooring covers the first floor interior. The master bathroom has custom polished marble flooring as well as a mosaic tile above the tub that recreates a famous painting of women pouring water into a basin. The home has stone molding details, 8’ iron front doors, textured ceilings, and 12” crown moldings, some of them gold.
“There’s just a lot of detail everywhere,” says Turek, noting that the first floor has a northern Italian, almost Venetian feel that’s more formal because of the elegant hardwood flooring installation, while the lower walkout, which features a recreation room, wet bar, home theater and gym, offers a Tuscan country vibe.
The home offers a great deal of outdoor living space including a boat dock with a limestone patio near the water. When it comes to limestone refinishing, the experts at Clean Image of Orlando will do a good job at restoring its original beauty. There is also a pergola with a wood-burning fireplace that matches the architecture of the house.
Turek made sure to incorporate lots of natural stone on the floor and walls to provide a real feeling of connection with the earth. He named the house “Villa Del Santuario,” which means “House of Sanctuary.”
“That’s the way that I view it because it’s so peaceful inside,” Turek says. “It’s very quiet. If there’s a storm outside, you feel safe and secure inside this home.”
