Bob Webb Group helps Joe and Cindi Cooper transform a home to create the ideal family environment
By: Duane St. Clair
Like many others, Joe and Cindi Cooper modified the original design of their Bob Webb Group home to fit the needs of a family of six when they chose to build in Highland Lakes in southern Delaware County.
That was about eight years ago. Now, the Coopers are practically empty-nesters, save for periodic visits by their three college-aged sons. At the outset, the Coopers wanted a “salt box and a downstairs master – and a southern facing lot.” When they found a lot they wanted, it had been sold. However, Cindi spotted a woman removing the “sold” sign and “I told her to leave it, I’ll buy it.”
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To accomplish the look they wanted, the front of the stucco home has wood siding, unique on Webb homes. “We wanted a front porch, too, a typical New England look,” she says. They don’t use the two rooms near the entry foyer for their suggested purposes. Through solid double doors to the left is Joe’s home office where a formal living room had been outlined. To the right, through a pillared opening, was to be the dining room, that Cindi says the family wouldn’t use. Now, it’s a place for Cindi’s computerized equipment that she uses to create art from photographs – a pastime she took up a few years ago.
Down the foyer is the great room with a two-story window wall overlooking a wooded ravine. To the right of the hall is the kitchen decorated with black granite, white cabinets, paneled doors and stainless appliances. A two-stool service bar extends from one side of the opening to an adjoining dining area. There, the Coopers added a bay window near a circular table with seating for five.
The master suite is located on the opposite side of the great room. It has a walk-in closet off of the sleeping area. A twin-sink counter and white cabinetry stand out when viewed through the large opening to the bath, where there’s a soaking tub beneath a rear window.
Upstairs, they chose to add a room above the garage. It’s a bedroom with a full bath. Two other bedrooms are served by a Jack‘n Jill bath.
Where a fourth bedroom was planned, they opted for a loft overlooking the great room. Initially, Cindi said she used it for sewing and scrapbooking, but that was before she turned to photography and artwork.
At the outset, some space upstairs and in the finished lower level allowed room for her hobby, as well as allowing recreational room for friends their four then school-age children.
The lower level is Joe’s space for whatever he wants. Originally they used the room (with a bath off a large entertainment space) as a bedroom. After that youngster went off to college, Cindi installed photographic developing and printing equipment there.
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The entertainment area has a projection television and movie screen served by comfortable couches. There’s a pool table and a collapsible ping-pong table stands at one end.Joe’s signature space is the “drum room.” Joe, one of the three original members of The Debits, a musical group of accountants, keeps two drum sets for band practice. One wall is covered with framed record album covers he has collected and some other souvenirs from music camps he has attended. While the album covers are attractive, Joe offers a quick “nothing” when asked what he does with CD cases. He’s also a karate hobbyist and has a padded workout apparatus in the room.
Outside, the Coopers had a large fish pond installed as part of the landscaping that includes a stone walled circular seating area at the edge of the woods. A net covers it as protection from a heron that often visits to scoop up larger fish.
How long the Coopers will keep the home is an open question. The Coopers have been in the Columbus-area for 20 years and “really like it here,” Cindi says. But they do have a second home in Naples, Fla., and Cindi is spending her second winter there. “I get too cold,” she says. At least for now Joe will make frequent trips to the warmer climate where Cindi gets to spend time with many acquaintances from the Columbus area and other family members.
Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor for Luxury Living.