A Setting for All Seasons
Award-winning show home offers country elegance, million-dollar view
Country elegance with a million dollar view. That’s how Rob Swan, an owner in Huntington Homes, describes his company’s award-winning show home in River’s Edge Estates off north Main Street, just outside the city boundary in West St. Paul.
Standing in the great room of this three-bedroom bungalow, Swan looks over the expanse of Red River at back. The water shimmers with a silver cast, framed with tall mature trees on the riverbank.
It’s a setting for all seasons and an appropriate location for a luxury bungalow with a fully developed lower level complete with a walk-out basement.
A door on the lower level opens onto the lot at back, while on the interior, buyers will get a recreation room, a media room, two extra bedrooms and a three-piece bath on this level, all constructed over a wood structural floor.
The wood floor is built above the foundation in order to create a warm floor underfoot for homeowners. On the main floor, a modern interior features some special custom touches.
A granite-topped island is highlighted overhead with a bulkhead that duplicates the shape of the island, and, running along the length of the island: a breakfast bar made of sturdy glass. Long vertical maple shaker cabinets feature spare lines and long linear handles, and three square open niches with metal insets provide intriguing modern accents between the kitchen and the great room.
But if there is one showcase room in this house, it is the round glass-walled dining room (16.5-foot diameter). A rounded wall marks the perimeter of the dining room and separates the dining room from the foyer and an etched glass panel set into the wall provides a touch of elegance.
“With the elimination of the living rooms since the middle ’90s, the dining room becomes that formal elegant room now,” said Swan.
He said a lot of people also enjoy the layout of the home. “A lot of people when they come into an open house can see the whole house, on this one, when you step in, you don’t see everything.” Not that the home doesn’t have its open spaces.
Great Room
The great room is separated from the kitchen with just a three-sided fireplace and the dining room has not been completely closed. Exotic walnut floors cover the kitchen, eating area, great room, dining room and main floor hallway and a 10-foot ceiling adds volume to the spaces.
Judges in the last Parade of Homes liked the house well enough to award it a gold place standing in its price category, which Swan says is particularly gratifying to him considering this is the company’s 20th anniversary. This was one of two gold winners in the parade. The other was at 78 Waterview Drive in Riverview.
The house also has a built in speaker system, a garburetor, a rear deck and a sprinkler system. A concrete driveway winds its way to a triple car garage and acrylic stucco and cultured stone cover the front of the house.