Stealth wealth' with an intercontinental twist

Stealth wealth' with an intercontinental twist

Stan Benecki and Melanie Turner's 10,000- to 11,000-square-foot home combines French and California influences for a bit of Hollywood glamour that isn't glitzy.

Text by RACHEL POMERANCE: The husband-and-wife team behind luxury builders Benecki Homes have crafted their abode with a sense of understated class, a style of building that Stan Benecki calls "stealth wealth." The home's facade, for example, belies its scale. What appears to be roughly 4,000 square feet is more like 10,000 to 11,000 square feet, Stan says. "It's not trying to be 'look at me,' it just is."

Stan Benecki and Melanie Turner pose in their home's salon, a light and laidback room full of soft hues and varied textures. Turner, an interior designer who oversees the design staff at Benecki Homes, calls the look a mixture of French and California influences. There's a bit of Hollywood glamour, "but it's not glitzy," she says, comparing the style to today's mode of dressing up jeans with a fine blouse. "That's how we dress so that's how we should live."

Listed at $4.895 million, the Benecki home was modeled after one they'd seen in Dallas' Highland Park. Endorsing Benecki as the unrivaled best builder in town, Wendy Zoller of Atlanta Fine Homes/Sotheby's says his homes "are built the way people used to build houses." As Melanie puts it, "He builds a house for generations. It's a not a huff-and-a-puff-and- a-blow-your-house-down."

You might have seen this foyer, with its groin vault and handmade railing, in catalogs for Bloomingdale's and Ralph Lauren. The floor is made of French-cut limestone. Dark wooden floors balance white walls throughout most of the home. It's a way of joining the masculine and feminine so that "no matter who walks in the house," they can feel comfortable, Melanie says.

Gray, white and yellow tones throughout the home give it a fresh, neutral feel. The patchwork rug is an antique Oushak. The landscape diptych is by local artist Ulises Toache.

"I wanted it to feel like a French ballroom," Melanie says of their formal dining room. To create the effect, they used parquet floors, velvet drapes, mirrors and a crystal chandelier, custom-made in California. A pair of vintage sconces flank the oil painting by Todd Murphy, an Atlanta artist who is their friend.

The rooms that "date a house the most" are the kitchen and bathroom, Melanie says, so the look here is what she calls a "classical design" updated with modern twists. "Good artists copy, but great artists steal," Stan says, quoting Picasso. For example, the oven hood is their rendition of something they saw in a commercial kitchen. The stove is by Lacanche from Burgundy, France. And the marble countertops are honed "so it doesn't look new," Melanie says.

The couple used a woven nickel inlay for the far cabinets, a take on the chicken-wire screens in French kitchens. They also placed the window at the sink's edge to increase natural light and offer a view to the vegetable and herb garden.

The lamp, a rectangular block of linen, blends with the linen chairs in the oval-shaped breakfast room. Melanie used mostly linen and velvet fabrics in the home, balancing the lightness of the former with what she calls the "richness" of the latter.

"We like houses that unfold, like a personality," Melanie says. "You don't walk in and see everything at once." At the back of the home, the salon has "a lot of tone-on-tone and texture," she says. Anchoring the room is her own design: a cast concrete table with metal legs that lighten the mood of the 17th century Italian candelabras and the French landscape. A chandelier, made of shells, "makes the room more casual," she says.

In their screened-in porch, the heft of this lantern matches the scale of the seating, wide enough for a nap, Melanie notes. The family of five heads here for dinner, to play games or to watch one. When the weather is nice, the doors to the room stay open.

The entry to the basement features a stuffed tiger given to Stan in lieu of money owed him by a vendor. Behind it are portraits of two sisters from Buenos Aires from the 1920s.

In the media room, the far wall features framed photos of Hollywood stars by Herb Ritts that were taken from a book. The seating, which Melanie calls "man chairs" because two people will fit in one, are covered in brown velvet.

A large painting by Todd Murphy and a chandelier, a reproduction of a French antique, add flair to the master bedroom. The gray velvet custom sofa has nickel nailheads that echo those on the headboard. It offers the couple a spot for reading and conversation.

Melanie shows off the Tory Burch dress she keeps on wall hook in the closet. "If you display them it's like works of art that you enjoy looking at on a daily basis," she says.

This painting in the upstairs hallway is by Denise Falk, a painting professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design. The farmland references in "Apple Betty" resonate with the couple -- Stan is from Indiana. Melanie was born in Wales. Scurrying down the hallway is Daisy May, originally from Michigan.

Striped carpeting, dark colors and metal furniture -- and, yes, the antlers -- offer a private den for their 18-year-old son Harrison. The desk is from Pottery Barn.

"Instead of making it old-lady blue French," Melanie added a punch of green to freshen her 21--year-old daughter Cydney's room. Melanie got the look by combining a sofa they owned with custom drapes and pillows she designed. The result is a look that would make Kate Spade proud.

Stan likes to have two sets of washers and dryers for extra efficiency. To the left, chalk and magnetic paint make this wall into a display area for notes and knick knacks.

One of Melanie's favorite rooms is the library, which "pays homage to 1970s Hermes," she says. The look started with the tray and the horse painting. It was fulfilled with Pecky Cypress walls, brass and gold accessories and a Pottery Barn rug. "I love orange," she says. Their dog Jesse seems to like it, too.

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Text by RACHEL POMERANCE: The husband-and-wife team behind luxury builders Benecki Homes have crafted their abode with a sense of understated class, a style of building that Stan Benecki calls "stealth wealth." The home's facade, for example, belies its scale. What appears to be roughly 4,000 square feet is more like 10,000 to 11,000 square feet, Stan says. "It's not trying to be 'look at me,' it just is."

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