330 Homes Fall 2022

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“We want this to be the place where kids bring their friends to hang out,” Cassie says. “I think we’ve done that.” Joel bought the property from his parents. The couple got a good offer to rent their downtown Akron loft where they previously lived (They would like to return to it as their empty nest home.), so they rented elsewhere during con involved a lot of changes to the landscaping, cre ating a backyard while honoring the village’s riparian setback require struction. That took about 8 months and

ments about building back from the lake. “We had to strategically fit this house into the site,” Joel says. You can’t argue with the results. The open floor plan on the main floor includes a 29-by-18-foot great room and 23-by 16-foot kitchen. There’s an eight-burner stove with a quartz-and-glass backsplash, and a mas sive 11-by-6 1/2-foot kitchen island, which can accommodate 12 people comfortably. Most family meals

the kitchen countertops are granite, the island’s countertop is quartz, which Joel says is becoming the predomi nant kitchen surface. “It’s manmade, so it’s controllable,” he says. “It’s antimicrobial and it doesn’t stain. It’s far lower maintenance than granite.” The original design of the main floor was flipped, Joel says, to afford better lake views from the great room that has two-story-tall picture windows, a white

with a digital hookup and a walkout water front porch. As a result, the kitchen was bigger than originally intended and features a walk-in pantry and butler’s kitchen area. There’s also a formal 12-person dining room, which the Testas use less frequently, that has a window into the front yard at one end, and a glass-encased wine room at the other. The dining room features a dark accent wall. The Testas flipped the script from their loft’s darker black, white and gray color scheme.

are eaten around the island, and although

concrete fireplace, a custom player piano

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