When Candy Felts first saw her Preston Hollow home, she was immediately impressed with its decor.
“Everything was perfect,” she says. “It was all done in white, with gorgeous linens and gold and black fixtures. I walked in and said, ‘It’s absolutely beautiful. And it will never look like this again.’”
Candy and husband Rick found much to like about the Dilbeck-designed ranch-style house. There were just two problems: It wasn’t big enough, and it wasn’t colorful enough.
Candy loves color, she loves variety, and she loves to mix and match interesting items. To her, decorating is much more than hauling in a bunch of furniture and picture frames. It’s taking the time — as in years — to find items of both beauty and meaning.
“Most everything in this house has some story that goes with it,” she says. “I don’t just go out and buy things.”
In 12-year-old Jake’s room, a “groovy” lamp from “some junk store” lights a large Mobil sign on the wall, taken from his granddad’s old San Antonio service station. On the opposite wall is a colorful map of , which is actually a tablecloth from the ’50s.
“My son is very into and the European thing,” she says. “And he thinks maps are pretty cool, too, so it’s perfect.”
In the family room, what looks like a purple gazing ball is actually a large Japanese fish float, acquired in an antique store in
In the front of the house is a “multi-cultural living room,” filled with Dutch, Chinese and Middle Eastern furnishings and décor. “There’s a little bit of everything happening here,” she says. The coffee table, for example, is made out of an old baby bed topped with glass.
“One of the things you’ll find in all the rooms,” she says, “is there’s always something that’s funky and weird and doesn’t really belong. Like Mel Gibson in the dining room.”
Turns out she’s referring to a photo of her with Mel, inconspicuously placed on one of the room’s many shelves. Its presence is almost as mysterious as her story behind it: “All I’ll say is, I showered with Mel Gibson, and my life is complete.”
Interesting, but that’s all we’re going to get. So back to the house.
The couple enlarged it in two phases, taking care to match the house’s original lines and look. They added a new master bedroom, with corner windows similar to those found in other rooms, and a curved ceiling to match the one in the living room.
In the back, they removed the walls of a smaller bedroom to create a large family room. Then they further opened up that area by removing an adjoining kitchen wall, replacing it with a large maple countertop.
It’s an unusual countertop choice in this solid surface age, but it suits Candy just fine.
“Everybody is in putting granite countertops, but my theory is, they’re hard, cold and elegant, and I’m not any of those things,” she says with a laugh. “Besides, in these little ranch houses, I think it looks ridiculous with them. It just doesn’t go at all.”
Then came changes to a utilitarian space that most homeowners don’t bother with much. But at the Felts home, the pantry was priority.
“I didn’t care about any of the other stuff,” she says. “I just wanted my pantry.”
Now twice its original size, it’s painted in three vibrant colors: green apple, purple and orange. She found the combination inspiration from a Fruitlings dried fruit package.
“I showed my painter this bag and said, ‘I want these colors,’” she says.
The results? “It’s the happiest pantry in Preston Hollow.”
Moving from the inner-most to the outer-most part of the house, the back yard is probably equally happy, thanks to a team effort by Candy, Rick and flexible professionals.
Named a Master Gardener by the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, Candy knows more than a little something about plants and landscaping.
“I had a vision for what I wanted,” she says. And because of a “very good landscape guy,” that vision turned into a beautiful back yard with a colorful variety of plants and trees.
But the pool and the hot tub, which Rick designed to be connected by a rock-filled stream, are the centerpiece of the yard.
“Every Saturday morning, he’d sit and drink coffee and draw pools,” Candy says. “We thought about a waterfall, but decided it was too ordinary. No, we had to have a babbling brook.”
The design is an interesting twist to a common backyard amenity, echoing the style of the entire home: an often-seen design made surprisingly unique.
“We like it,” Candy says. “It’s unlike anyone else’s house we know.”
And that, whether referring to a ranch-style home or a faux-castle McMansion, is something few folks can say.
