‘Statement Home’ in Texas Seeks Buyer in Love With Over-the-Top Design
It sounds like the setup to a hackneyed joke or an off-kilter riddle, but bear with us.
What do you get when a couple of geologists decorate a five-bedroom, five-bathroom house?
Answer: a glitzy, over-the-top 11,500-square-foot mansion in Midland, TX, with exotic taxidermy, safari animal hides, and enough light fixtures to keep the entire neighborhood lit.
Because of the couple’s shared passion for geology, landscaped rocks at the $2.65 million home were sourced from local quarries.
The listing agent, Norma Pine with Pine & Beckett Realtors, tells us that the lavishly decorated residence is on the market only three years after the sellers built it.
She also reports that there are 38 light fixtures in the living room alone—including a chandelier.
Above the kitchen island is a fixture created out of a vintage watering wheel, sourced from a farm. Paired with that innovation is a chef-grade cooking area accented in
For These Urban Refugees, Country Living Isn’t Quite Second Nature
Stephanie Trunzo used to jet around America as global vice president at Oracle from her base in a 6,800-square-foot Raleigh, N.C., house. These days, she can be found watching alligators snack on seafood from the back porch of her three-bedroom, three-bathroom Daufuskie Island, S.C., home, where she retreated with her husband, Ryan Malynn, and daughter to ride out the pandemic.
“We looked at is as a bunker, a bubble away from fear,’’ said Ms. Trunzo, 43. She and her husband, 43, purchased the $920,000 home a year ago. “It’s as if we’ve returned to childhood and are playing outside. We are like Davy Crockett off exploring in the wilderness.”
Ms. Trunzo and Mr. Malynn are far from alone in their newfound appreciation for a more basic life. From New York to San Francisco, urbanites have escaped to bucolic second homes and found a deeper connection to the nature that surrounds