Inside One Of The Best Architectural Homes In Florida

Hello everyone, welcome to the Luxury Home Show. My name is Ralph Choeff. I'm founding partner of the firm Choeff Levy Fishman in Miami, Florida, and I want to take you through this beautiful 14,200 square foot residence in Boca Raton, Florida, designed in the typical tropical modern style that our firm is accustomed to designing. So as you come in, you're going to see this cascading water wall. But the purpose of this cascading water wall is twofold. Number one, it hides the garage, which is entered from the other side, so no one knows there's a garage. And the second, it's a beautiful cascading water feature, and the sounds are very soothing, so they take you right on through to the entry. If you keep panning around, you'll see that it's a reflecting pond that kind of encompasses the front of this residence, which gives the residence itself a floating effect. Notice how the water actually goes in under the elements that are cantilevered, and they look like they're floating on water. Then you have this beautiful sculpture in the front, these two heads, which also seem to appear as they're coming from the water. In order to blend all the aesthetics together, we have this grand driveway that fits many cars. And what it's made from are precast concrete that are polished to the gradient or to the granules inside, so it almost gives it a terrazzo effect, and it has turf in between the joints. Notice how we kind of change the pattern there, so we don't look like we're monotonous in this design. The house has many levels, many cubes. It's a very sculptural residence in its architecture, and we'd like to take you through the house inside now. So as I'm walking inside the house, I'm walking on stepping stones that are raised from the reflecting pond. The water comes underneath, and you will feel as if you're walking on water. The same thing happens in the entry stairs as you're coming up, and then of course you approach the all-glass, 12-foot-high, pivot front door. So here we enter the residence, which is about 14,200 square feet in size, and we have a 12-foot-high glass door framed with glass on either side of it. So any person coming up to the house can see through and through into the rear, which frames the pool, the pond, and the golf course. And as you're walking into the house, you see a 130-foot-long skylight, which frames the left side and the right side of the house that have different uses. So if you notice, there is no artwork on the walls here, and that's done on purpose because we want the architecture to read, and that's why there is no artwork on either side. And you'll see, if you look straight, this is the opposite end of the entry, and that shows you the swimming pool with the fire pit lounge that's sunken into the pool, the pond beyond it, and the golf course. And here we walk into the living room, which is directly opposite the entry. This is the first room that one approaches, and it has very unusual lighting that lights up the space. It has a great see-through ribbon fireplace. You see from here into the lounge, the rest of it is framed with a resin material, and then you have an art niche that goes all the way up that complements the fireplace. So this entire central area is really a work of art. As you can see, these people are, these owners are really art collectors, so they have it wherever they can. And our centerpiece is a Steinway piano that has a lucite top, which is a beautiful complement to everything we have here. The interior designer was Deborah Wexelman on this project, and she worked directly with the owners and ourselves to create this look that you see here. And as we walk from the actual living room, we're now walking into a more casual space, which is the, we'll call it the game room and the bar. This is the other side of the see-through fireplace, which we just talked about. When you open these doors fully, you have an indoor-outdoor feel, so when you're sitting inside, you feel like you're outside, and vice versa. Here we have the pool table that complements the bar. And the bar, behind the bar, there's a refrigerated wine display. The bar itself has some excellent liquors, and it has a very top shelf, and then you have these rare wines behind it in the wine display. To get into the wine display, you come in through this door, and everything in this room is refrigerated. You get to really be with the wine that you're going to choose, and it causes a very intimate experience in the residence itself. And as we exit the temperature-controlled, refrigerated wine display, we again come back to the bar area, where you'll see an onyx top and waterfall, which is completely lit up, and makes the bar, also the bar itself, a piece of art within the residence. Right across from this room is the movie theater. So if I open the door to the movie theater, all of a sudden, I enter a soundproof room. And as I enter the soundproof room, we have three levels of comfortable chairs to watch movies, and we're sitting here looking at the screen in this very intimate, darker, soundproof room, which makes the viewing experience quite special. As we come out of the theater room, we walk down the skylight gallery, and we come across to the office suite of the residence, and as we walk into the office itself, we have the office, which is surrounded by reflecting ponds, cascading water walls. You hear the sound of the water, which is very relaxing, very soothing, and you have his and her office space right here. You can get a better feel for the dual desks and the intermediate wall that separates them. And as we come out of the office, we're now approaching the main entry to the residence itself, which is washed with natural light. To the right of the entry, we have this beautiful powder room, which is very subtle in its color tones and its materials. And then right across from the powder room, we have a beautiful piece of art that just leads you into the dining area and the kitchen itself. And as we approach this area of the house, it's really the dining kitchen lounge area in combination, keeping with the open plan that we have. So we have an informal dining area, and it's separated from the formal dining area with a gradient colored glass panel that we have here. If you notice the floss lighting that covers the two informal tables, it's just another piece of art within the house that has a function. So if I walk in this direction, I have this incredible piece of art here that has an ocean and with the waves and video, and then you have the still of the chair. It's a fabulous combination of the two media, and I love it. So in this area, of course, we have the more formal dining, which leads us to the kitchen. So the kitchen is wood. It's a granite product, and it's also mirrored cabinets up above. If you notice, it's very monochromatic. And if you look at this wall, this wall is all flush, and it's part of the kitchen. It has a hidden area for all your appliances and some pantry and all the actual ovens and refrigerators are all built into the wall itself. So it looks like it's part of the architecture. Dividing these two cabinets is a large piece of glass that lets natural light into the kitchen as well as it frames a sculpture at the end of this hallway, which is, or gallery, which is the skylight gallery. And if I walk over this way, I have the lounge. And the lounge is something that we'll sit in, we'll watch TV on, we'll relax, and we can also feed ourselves from the kitchen itself. It also opens out into the pool area, so you can use the lounge and kitchen in conjunction with the pool. So if you walk out here, this is off the informal dining, and what it is, is a series of sliding doors that lead to sliding doors on the opposite side, which is the living room. And you can walk across here from one area to the other without having to go all the way around when you're having a party or a get-together. This cascading water wall with a pool, with a reflecting pool, leads directly into the actual pool, and it has one large water feature. That's what it forms. So it's a really interesting kind of resort-ish type design. And as we come out of the dining area, we see that we have sliding glass doors that are fully open and pocket, so it seems like there's no door here, which lets the inside become the outside and the outside become the inside. We have this lounge area as soon as you walk out, and if you take a look at that and this, you blur the lines between what's inside and outside. You come across a summer kitchen with television, covered dining, and if you notice there's slits on these ceilings, and those are insect screens that actually come down and protect the residents from insects. If you want to walk into this area right here, this is our hot spa, which blends in with the pool and surrounded by shallow water for the kids to play or just to have it as a reflecting pond. And then I'm going to walk around here and going to walk across the stepping stones that flank the pool from the shallow waters. If I walk across the stepping stones on this side, I can either have the shallow water and then go into the pool proper, or I can actually come down to my sunken fire pit where the shoulder, when you sit down, is at the same elevation as the water. So you're surrounded by water on all sides, and then you have a fire pit right in the center of it. Again, you're facing the pond and the golf course across from it. And this works great with what's happening inside the house. As you can see, those doors are fully open to the area that's the lounge and the bar, and they work in conjunction with the pool, again blurring the lines from inside to outside. If I continue walking down the rear of the house, again, here's the area of the lounge and the bar where it works directly with everything that's happening outside, again blurring the lines inside for outside. I keep walking, I have my master suite, which faces the pool and faces the pond and the golf course with a covered lounging area right off the pool and the master suite itself. That's what makes the rear of the yard feel like a resort. We want it to feel very zen, very calming, very tranquil, so we make it feel like a resort. And as we continue on in the rear of the residence, we have our gym over there that, again, faces the pool. And now we have our primary suite, which has dual opening sliding glass doors on both sides, so when you're in bed, you can literally feel like you're outside by the pool or by the pond, by the golf course. You have complete connectivity. You have a beautiful sculpture here at the end of the pool that it's of a lifeguard and it kind of frames the pool itself if you look at it on access from the end. You have an owner's suite that is an exterior lounge, really, and it comes off the primary suite and you have lounge chairs that, again, face the pond, face the water itself from the pool and faces the golf course. And then you have a beautiful lawn, a manicured at the rear yard in this area, and you could see the rear of the house from this view. It's lineality, it's movement, it's indoor-outdoor effect, and you get the full perspective of what we're trying to do in this residence from this view. I think that covers the exterior, so let's go inside and talk about and see the actual bedrooms. And in this area, we have the guest and children's bedroom, and this is a central lounge to all the bedrooms, so it's a place where the family can come at night, they can speak, they can watch TV together. So we're going to enter the guest room, and the guest room has its own bathroom, has its own closet, and, of course, full sliders and the sliding glass doors give you an indoor-outdoor effect. You have a balcony, and you have the reflecting pond in front of it for that very zen feel. It's a really cool guest room. The interior designer did a wonderful job with the materials and giving this room a natural effect. So let's continue on, and if we continue on, you have one of the children's rooms. This is the room for the girl, and we have a closet here, and we have a bathroom here. And then this is the actual bedroom itself. All the bedrooms are themed, so they're not random, they're actually themed. So this one is for the girl and the grandchildren. Then you have the boy, or boys, and the grandchildren. They have their own bathroom again, their own closet, and this is a Lego-themed room. So if you look around the room, it's oversized Legos with a bunk bed and a little staircase that goes up to the upper bunk bed to make it easier. And the staircase is actually, they're actually drawers that pull out for storage. Then we have another room here, and this is the children's playroom. If you notice, it's also themed a little bit differently, and they have their sitting chairs, they have their toys to play with, and a full toy closet in here as well. Again, sliding glass doors give you that indoor-outdoor feel, and it's own bathroom. They need to use the bathroom, we go to this Keith Haring-themed bathroom, which is very cool. Now we're going to go into the primary suite, which is a mind-blowing area of the house. It's beautiful, it's big, and it's very, very functional for the owners. So as we walk in, we have this very large pivot door, and you walk into a sitting room that you have the two lounge chairs, you can watch TV, you have a morning kitchen to fix yourself up a coffee, or you can do it at night for wine, and maybe some snacks. If I open up this very large pivot door, I actually enter the main primary suite bedroom. It has the view of the lake, it has the view of the pool, it has sliding glass doors on both sides that open up. Very tall ceilings, like the rest of the house. From this room, I'm walking into, through a very large pivot door, her closet. If you look at her closet, it's sectionalized into shoe storage, handbag storage, and of course clothing. It's quite a large, we'll call it her wardrobe. On this side, from the closet from her wardrobe, you approach her bathroom, and it has a chair for hairstyling, and it has a tub, it has a beautiful open shower, and of course it has a lavatory with its own private toilet room. So now, if I walk across this area, I open up this large pivot door, as we walk into this area, it's the primary suite, his bath. So he's got a fully glass enclosed steam shower with a huge rain head, and a great sitting bench. He's got a private toilet room, and he's got his large vanity with his built-in sink. And from here you can walk directly into the master, or I'm sorry, into the primary closet, and when you walk into the primary closet, you see the shoes, and everything is put away systematically. It's beautifully done. You have all his clothing in this area, and as you walk out, you walk out through this pivot door, and you wind up back in the sitting room that's adjacent to the primary suite. From here, we can walk to the gym, and as we walk into the gym, we have a full gym with a stair master, weights, we have the kettle balls, and then we also have walls that are made of a resin material that simulates concrete, so it's a mixture of concrete and wood, and that's the theme of this gym, which is the theme in most gyms. It's a very complete gym, and the owners get to work out here every day. And as we walk this way through the residence, we come upon, adjacent to the kitchen, we come upon a staff kitchen, or a catering kitchen, where all the catering is done. If you have a party, or if you don't want to get your kitchen dirty, this is the staff kitchen where you would cook, then we have a very large walk-in pantry. The area that I'm in right now is the staff bedroom area, and the laundry room area, so all services are here, but I think what you'll really like to see is actually the garage. When you step into the garage, you'll find that it's kind of unusual, as there is full frameless glass facing the street side, so people can actually see the collection of antique cars that the owner possesses. Also, the garage doors are all glass as well, which light up the space beautifully. You continue on, you have room for eight cars on lifts, and you have an additional car or two you can put in here that are not on lifts, but everything else is on lifts. You can see that these cars are mostly antique cars, and they're quite valuable. Thank you for taking this tour of this tropical modern residence here in Boca. We look forward to having you join us for more homes in the near future. Welcome to the Luxury Home Show. We're in Fort Lauderdale today, and we're going to be checking out this incredible mansion behind me that was built in 2022 by Prestige Construction. Now, if you're interested in South Florida real estate, you may have seen some coverage of this home previously online, but today we're actually going to do a detailed walkthrough, and we're starting right off on the exterior.