BCHG Home of Distinction Winter06

This modern marvel combines functionality,

beauty, warmth and creativity. You’ll never

see another home like it, so transport

yourself through this futuristic wonder.

HOME of DISTINCTION

The next person who rings Cindy Lindsay and Steve Sheafor’s doorbell may just hear The Jetsons theme song. The popular 1960s cartoon about a space-age family is an apropos greet-ing, considering the couple’s astonish-ingly contemporary home.

By Carol Brock

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© Copyright 2006 Boulder County Home & Garden Magazine • www.homeandgardenmag.com 1

Modern materials, art and sculptural elements are abundant throughout this uniquely contemporary home.


When it debuted 43 years ago, The Jetsons wooed audiences with the promise of saucer homes floating in the heavens and high-tech gadgets of every type. Steve and Cindy’s equally futuristic home may be terrestrial, but it does have remarkable features all its own, like slanted walls, space-age materials, and four mechanical

rooms devoted to 800 amps that operate the lighting, audio, video, shades, ther-mostats, ventilation, air conditioning and security from touch pads in most rooms. Just as The Jetsons astounded viewers at the time, Steve and Cindy’s place always gets the same reaction from first-time visi-tors: “Wow, what an amazing home!”

Custom wood ceiling panels, reclaimed wooden floors, and backlit onyx on either side of the fireplace create a warm glow in the great room.

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In fact, the couple’s 8,900-square-foot home may be the perfect marriage between contemporary design, artistic architecture, futuristic materials and state-of-the-art technology. “We live here every day and we some-times get to feeling a little blasé about the house,” Cindy says, “but everybody who comes here is like, ‘Wow!’ So it’s really nice for us to go, ‘Oh yeah, wow!’ and remember that we did put the time and energy into the house to get that kind of reaction.” But to the old saying, “right place at the right time,” you would have to add “with the right people” in the case of this home, because it never would have been as magnificent without the right architect, builder, subcontractors and artisans, as well as the owners themselves. Transplants from Silicon Valley, Cindy and Steve are engineers (he’s electrical, she’s software) who were in the right place at the right time. In the mid-’90s, their Longmont company, Sitera, designed a specialized computer chip for manag-

ing Internet traffic. In 2002, California-based Vitesse (a French term for “speed”) bought Sitera, and in a blink, the couple found themselves on the tail end of the computer boom with a lot of cash in their hands. “At the time we sold Sitera, a lot of people made a lot of money and built houses here, because I guess that’s just what you do,” says Steve, who now operates a high-tech consulting com-pany with Cindy called FLS Consulting. “And, we finally had the time to be heavily involved, which is the only way we would ever build a house.” But their only custom home wouldn’t be any old house, and Steve and Cindy aren’t any old homeowners. “We’re kind of crazy,” says Cindy with a laugh, “so it was really important to find people who could do crazy stuff.” Enter architect Laurence “Renzo” Verbeck of Boulder’s Verbeck Design Studios Inc. Young, ambitious and gifted, Renzo welcomed the challenge, especially

The headboard and built-ins in the master bedroom were designed by architect Renzo Verbeck, who also created sculptural pieces for the home. The custom ceiling treatment above the bed defines the space.

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This sculpture’s flowing form is in keeping with the home’s many architectural elements.


The indoor atrium features 900 square feet of plants, boulders and a waterfall that cascades two floors beneath the tread-lit staircase with metal rails and plastic stairs.

Steve and Cindy’s wish to create an indoor atrium with 900 square feet of plants, boulders and a waterfall that cascades two floors beneath a staircase connecting three of the home’s four levels. “They were ceaselessly creative,” says Renzo, noting that Steve designed the twinkling lights recessed into sky-colored panels above the atrium, as well as the staircase tread lights. The couple also designed several computer and cardboard models of their home before it was built. “They’re very attached to nature,” Renzo says, “and they wanted the house to be very grounded in nature and the atrium to be a focal point.” Steve and Cindy also wanted an ultra-contemporary, clean design and were delighted to discover Renzo was also a contemporary sculptor and furniture designer who was knowl-edgeable about unusual materials. The couple interviewed several archi-tects before selecting Renzo, who worked for Eric Smith Associates at the time. “The other architects approached it like we would,” Steve says. “We’re both engineers, so we would have asked how many square feet do you want, how many rooms, etc. We wanted someone who could bring something new to the mix.” When the couple initially interviewed Renzo, he asked different questions. “He said, ‘Tell us how you live, tell us what you do in your home,’” Cindy says. “So the house was designed from a function point of view.”

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The home theater’s elaborate ceiling is just one of several unique ceiling treatments. The bar on the left is lit by pendant lights created by the homeowners’ relative.

In this case, however, function had to follow form, as the couple’s Pinebrook Hills lot was long, narrow and steep, and subject to height restrictions. “The site sort of dictated the home’s long, thin shape,” Steve says, noting the home spans 194 feet end to end and was built south to north because of the difficult terrain. But long and thin hardly meant straight and narrow. “I look through a sculptor’s eyes, so everything is a sculpture,” Renzo says. “I saw that house as a single space, and then sculpted out different areas so that each space had its own experience, yet it’s part of the whole experience. That was the overriding goal.” That goal is clearly abundant in the curving, flowing shapes employed in the ceilings and surfaces, and the open floor plan that melds one room into the next, particularly the atrium, great room, kitchen and dining areas. “At one point you’re in all four spaces, yet you have a decision about which one to enter,” Renzo

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Name: Laurence “Renzo” Verbeck

Age: 40

Company: Verbeck Design Studios Inc.

Specialty: Contemporary architecture, sculpture and furniture design

Contact information: 303-926-6909, [email protected]

Home state: New York (Hudson River Valley)

Favorite architect: Santiago Calatrava, who designed the 2004 Olympic Village in Greece

Favorite public building in Boulder County: National Center for Atmospheric Research, designed by I. M. Pei

Dream project: To build his own residence on a lot in north Boulder and to continue to work on projects like the home he designed for Cindy Lindsay and Steve Sheafor

Laurence “Renzo” Verbeck always wanted to be an architect. “I remember selling lemonade when I was 10 and telling people I was going to be an architect,” says the owner of Boulder’s Verbeck Design Studios Inc. “All I ever did was build things and design things and make models out of Legos and Lincoln Logs.” Renzo’s lifelong dream came true when he graduated in 1990 with an environmen-tal design degree from the University of Colorado. But along his path, he’d also become a contemporary sculptor and that profoundly influences his work. “A sculpture is an object in space; it doesn’t do anything, it just sits there, which is the great thing about sculpture,” Renzo says. “But a house is different. You have to interact with it all the time and you have to have elements that are not token, that are contiguous.” Renzo applied that philosophy to Cindy Lindsay and Steve Sheafor’s Pinebrook Hills home, which he began designing in 2001 (the couple moved into their home in March 2005). “The homeowners were very involved in the process from start to finish,” he says. “Unless you have a great reputation for some international style and you can dictate what’s going to happen—which doesn’t sound like that much fun, honestly—the clients direct a lot and their input is significant. But the architect has to bring

that together somehow, sort it out and pro-duce something cohesive.” What Renzo produced for Steve and Cindy is a stunning example of what he calls intimate contemporary. “The home is contem-porary, in the sense that it’s not a reproduc-tion or a knockoff,” he says. “It’s open, airy and light, and it uses lots of modern materials. It’s also very warm because of the amount of wood involved in it. The lines are very clean, it’s very sleek, and [frilly fashion designer] Laura Ashley would definitely not like it.” Since he’s also a sculptor, “I mix materi-als and I know materials,” says Renzo. “I can come up with reasonable expectations for X, Y and Z materials, and I’m always looking for new things. So I’d come up with ideas and the clients were interested in following through.” Renzo also defined the home’s open spaces through elaborate ceiling panels and canopies. “Unless you’re careful about defin-ing space, you can just get lost,” he says. “A lot of interior decorators try to do that with furniture. Sure, it can be done, but it’s an afterthought. I prefer to do it architecturally. That’s why the different panels and ceiling treatments are so involved—to try and make people comfortable in a defined space. Then you don’t have to have a lot of furniture, because I don’t like stuff.”

—Carol Brock

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ARCHITECT ABSTRACT


This “node” or intersection is one of many in the home, where the eye is drawn into several spaces and the viewer has a choice about which to enter.


Above: This 54-inch-tall marble female form was sculpted by the architect with marble from Marble, Colo.

Below: The light panel above the bar and the bar top are made of a space-age, custom-molded resin. The kitchen cabinets are bamboo and the glass pendant lights were crafted by a family cousin.

says. “The whole thing is about flow, so the house is full of nodes, or intersections, where your eye is drawn into many spaces at once and then you can go into different spaces from there. Each space is unique, but still part of the whole.” The home’s contemporary nature is fur-ther revealed in windows that stretch to the floor and materials like resins that form the kitchen bar, floor-to-ceiling sconces, and panels that define and accent spaces. The home’s harder materials are softened and balanced by unusual, beautiful woods, including reclaimed Thai railroad ties in the main-level floor kitchen, various oak ceiling panels and bamboo kitchen cabi-nets; softly backlit onyx on either side of the main fireplace; glass tiles in a mantel and bar base; and a slate powder-room wall over which water trickles softly down. Another feature that makes the home warm and inviting—rather than sterile contemporary—is family art. A painting of a snowcapped peak by Cindy’s mother awaits visitors in the foyer, along with other pieces she created for the home. Steve’s cousin, Michele, is a stained-glass artist who crafted the front door and a sliding door in the master bedroom that opens onto a balcony overlooking the waterfall. Her husband, Nathan, also a glass artist, created the home’s pendant lights. Renzo designed the dining room table, master bedroom headboard and

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PHOTOS COURTESY VERBECK DESIGN STUDIOS INC.PHOTO BY RON FORTH


Onyx pedestals light up the master bath, which features built-in cabinets designed by the architect and sinks designed by the homeowners.

built-ins, and some of the home’s sculp-tures, including a 54-inch-tall marble female form. “Renzo is clearly from the Frank Lloyd Wright school, in that the fur-niture, the house and everything should all be designed together,” Steve says, “and we really like that.” But the best-laid architectural plans depend upon a good builder, and Boulder’s Thomas Stanko Construction fit the bill. “Tom took us to several clients and they’d all greet him with a big hug and were so happy to see him that we knew he was probably a good builder,” Steve says. “Before we built our house we’d heard all these horror stories about builders getting a job 90-percent done, but not finished, because they were off to their next project. So it was nice to see that people were so happy to see Tom.” In fact, Steve says, “he’s told us many times he’s our builder for life. If some-thing ever goes wrong, he’ll fix it.” Which is the perfect scenario for a couple that plan to live in their house for-ever. “We’re going to be buried right out there in the meadow,” Cindy laughingly says. “I mean, why would we ever want to leave this place?”

Carol Brock is editor of Boulder County Home & Garden Magazine and had a hard time leaving Steve and Cindy’s home after their interview because it’s so darn cozy and makes you feel completely at home.

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The powder room has curving walls inlaid with copper and slate, and a mirror above the vessel sink with a shape that evolved from castaway cardboard.

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Cindy Lindsay and Steve Sheafor enjoy their home’s spectacular views.


BCHG Home of Distinction Winter06

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