Just when we think we’ve seen it all, along comes our Inwood Home of the Week at 6930 Brookshire Drive. It’s a sleek contemporary modern with an exaggerated pitch roof, built in 1973. We’ve included some of the before photos so you can appreciate the original shagadelic décor.
The producers of Austin Powers could have easily filmed scenes here before Lisa and Clay Stapp purchased it. We’ve been told it was owned by a very hip real estate broker. His wife had a custom salon in the house. That’s right, her hairdresser came to her. Those were the days!
Back in the 70s, three sisters discovered Brookshire Park and built homes for themselves. This contemporary modern is the largest of the three at 6,317 square feet on a double lot. Rather than fence each house, the ladies built one large fence around all three homes and added side entrances so they could easily visit one another. In fact, this four-bedroom, five-and-one-half-bath swinging pad has 11 entrances to the exterior. Each of the en-suite bedrooms has outside entrances leading to private courtyards.
It takes people that understand real estate and design to appreciate the potential of a home like this. The combined visions of Clay, owner of the real estate company Clay Stapp + Co., and Lisa, a stager and interior designer, were exactly what this groovy crib needed.
“We knew from the moment we saw the house that it was perfect,” Lisa said. “Sure, it looked like Hugh Hefner’s Dallas shag pad, pimped out in 1970s purple crushed velvet, shag carpeting, and paisley wallpaper — on the ceiling — but it also had our four must-have elements.”
The essentials were a one-story home with a grand entrance, tall ceilings, and wide hallways. “This is the first house saw and that was it, we didn’t even look at the other houses we had on the list,” Lisa said.
“Every room was painted a different color and that carried into the bathrooms,” Lisa said. “So, the pink bedroom had a bathroom with a pink toilet. Everything matched, the bedding, the fixtures, the accessories, and the carpet.”
Remember it’s often been said that the 70s is the decade taste forgot, the 60s with a hangover.
It took the Stapps a year to turn this psychedelic period-piece into the stylish, chic, dramatic, contemporary modern home you see today. They took it down to the studs, completely rebuilding everything but keeping the original open floor-plan. The wide hallways were one of the items the Stapps had to have, and are a much-loved feature of the entire family.
“The hallways are like runways for our two kids,” Lisa said. “They skate, and yes they ride their bikes and hoverboards there! The hallway in the front of the house is about 75 feet long and all of the hallways connect.”
“The previous owner was 95 and would walk two miles in the house, that’s 45 times around the house,” Clay said. You’ll certainly hit your Fitbit step goal in this contemporary modern.
Having vision means knowing what to change and what to leave alone. Structurally, only the kitchen and master bedroom were changed and those ceilings were vaulted to match the two original vaulted ceilings in the home.
There are an additional 500 square feet of covered outdoor space overlooking the manicured backyard. The Stapps filled in the original pool and built a new pool to match the Palm Springs vibe of their contemporary modern home.
“The openness of the house is amazing,” Lisa said. “It’s an entertainers dream. You can fit 200 people in here and you’d never realize there were that many. All the windows are open to beautiful views. You feel like you are on vacation everywhere you look.”
If you want to get as close to a Palm Springs vacation as possible, without ever leaving home, give Clay a call. He has this chic contemporary modern listed for $1.75 million.
Karen Eubank is the owner of Eubank Staging and Design. She has been an award-winning professional home stager for more than 25 years and a professional writer for 20 years. Karen is the mother of a son who’s studying music at The University of Miami. An ardent animal lover, she doesn’t mind one bit if your fur baby jumps right into her lap. Find Karen at www.eubankstaging.com
