HOME & GARDEN
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BY KATE MCCLENDON PHOTOS BY KEVIN HAISLIP • WWW.HAISLIPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
HOME OF THE YEAR 2011 Ali and Guhaina Sharaf and their four children, Mohamad, Dena, Salma and Jude, are not strangers to the Ellis County area. For the past 17 years, they’ve lived in Ovilla. But on the first day of fall 2010, they moved into a new Tuscanstyle house off of Ovilla Road. “We wanted to stay in Ovilla. We really like the city—it’s quiet, nice and safe and we really like the neighbors,” Guhaina said. “Jim Johnson built the first home we lived in 17 years ago,” Ali said. “We enjoyed that house and felt he did a great job.” Since they enjoyed his work so much, they hired him to build their new home. The Sharafs feel there’s a lot of talent in Ellis County and wanted to stick with local builders and sub-contractors. Once Jim Johnson started working on the home, it took two years to build, including all of the outside amenities. He said that considering all of the extras the house has, like a lake, pavilion, water well and resortlike landscaping, the process would usually take much longer. “The Sharafs made quick decisions and we all worked very well together as a team,” Jim said. “This helped in keeping the construction process
moving.” Though the process moved quickly, it was not without a few minor difficulties here and there. For Jim, one of the biggest challenges was coordinating more than 50 workers on site during some days. They also imported a lot of limestone from Syria that was installed in the courtyard, on the exterior and inside the home. “Designing, measuring, ordering, waiting for months on this limestone and then adapting the pieces that did not fit exactly right was a bit of a challenge,” Jim said. They built the house on the land the Sharafs have owned for 12 years, which used to be the old Ovilla campground from 1904 to 1958. A few years ago, a neighbor brought by a plate with a picture of what the campground looked like. They’ve kept many of the trees on the property, most of which have been growing for more than 100 years. For the Sharafs, one of the main challenges was deciding exactly where on the land to build the home. Their previous house sat on the property right where the Sharafs
GUHAINA & ALI SALMA, JUDE, MOHAMAD, DENA wanted to build. They had to decide whether to keep the old house and use it as a guest house or tear it down and build the new one. Another challenge the Sharafs faced was deciding on a style of the house. “We wanted a Tuscan style; we were in Italy two years before we built the house and drove through Tuscany and saw a lot of houses there,” Ali said. “We liked the style but at the same time, our background is from Syria and we liked the old Damascus style of houses. We wondered, “how can we marry the two to where they can hug each other in harmony?” JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2011
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And then we came up with the Mediterranean style.” Since the Mediterranean style encompasses a few other styles, including Roman, they used that to influence the rest of the decisions throughout the house by mixing old and new pieces and styles to make something unique and comfortable. While they worked to design the layout of the house, the Sharafs had a few things in mind. Since they have four children ranging in ages from 4 months to 16 years, they wanted each child to have their own bedroom. Guhaina’s mother also stays with the family for four to five months each year, so they wanted to have a space for her where she would be comfortable. Ali also wanted a game room that was separated from the house, but Guhaina came up with the idea to attach the game room to the house rather than have a sep-
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arate building. This created a courtyard in the middle of the house that Guhaina filled with a Damascus look by importing stone from a city near Syria. Jim coordinated a team of architects, design firms, landscaping architects and engineers and made sure everything came together perfectly for the Sharafs. The layout of the house is ideal for entertaining, as it is open throughout most of the first floor, with a courtyard in the front and large, motorized sliding doors along the back leading out to a huge patio, pool area and luscious backyard. The family hosted an event for Governor Rick Perry two weeks before the November elections, which marked Perry’s first trip to Ovilla. He commented that the backyard reminded him of the south of France, which was a great compliment to Ali. The kitchen, breakfast area and living
area are where family and guests tend to gather, and it’s no surprise considering Guhaina’s excellent cooking skills. She cooks three meals a day, every day, mixing American, Mediterranean and Syrian styles together. “Guhaina is a great cook; she’s phenomenal,” Ali said. But Ali is not without his own specialty. “I added the pizza oven,” he said. “That’s my part of the cooking.” Using a recipe from an Italian friend’s grandmother, Ali makes Napoli-style pizza from scratch in the built-in brick pizza oven. The family has a garden outside the home where they grow organic herbs, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, tomato, eggplant, cabbage and more. Often, if they make salad for dinner, they’ll go into the garden to collect the fresh ingredients. Another feature in the dream kitchen is the commercial-grade vent-a-hood.
Since the house is open and the kitchen is in the center, the smell of what’s cooking tends to go throughout the entire house. With the vent-a-hood, no one can smell what’s going on in the kitchen. To tie the interior of the house to the exterior and the property, Ali wanted to bring the inside out and the outside in. “I’m a civil engineer and builder and I do a lot of commercial building,” Ali said. “I like to build outside-of-the-box stores and I enjoy the different materials that can create a look. I do it in an artistic way so it all works in harmony between brick, stone, marble and stucco.” They continued the theme of mixing styles into the furniture and artwork inside the house. Some pieces are local and some are foreign. The breakfast area table was designed by Guhaina and custom made locally. It’s made up of three different ta-
bles that fit together and can seat three to four people at each one. So for larger parties, you can put two tables together for 12 people or all three tables together for 16. “We planned to have a breakfast area that was warmer since we use it more than the formal dining room,” Guhaina said. Though they may use the breakfast area more often, both Guhaina and Ali said the dining table was their favorite piece of furniture in the house. Ali has a friend in Venice who owns a furniture company, which is where they found the table. It is one solid piece that measures 20 feet by five and a half feet and can seat 24 people. Guhaina was happy when they finally found it since she had been looking for a dining table in Dallas for almost a year and hadn’t found anything that was perfect. Their favorite piece of artwork in the home came from their landscape archi-
tect, David Baldwin, who is also an artist. He surprised the family with a painting of a flower and, if you look really closely, you can see the family’s names incorporated into the background. While the family had help with some of the interior design and decorating aspects, Guhaina contributed a lot to the look and feel of the house. With her artistic eye, she picked out most of the colors and the marble in the house. She was also able to blend modern furniture with some pieces from Damascus. “She is very artistic,” Ali said. “I trust her taste; she knows how to pick colors.” Guhaina loved choosing the colors and wanted everything to look just right. They had to change the color in the dining room five times to achieve the perfect color. They also wanted to keep all the colors throughout the house soft and warm to
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HOME & GARDEN create a homey and comfortable atmosphere. The family’s travels have had the most influence on their design style—they’ve visited more than 40 countries. As they visit different places, Guhaina says they collect ideas along the way. They’ll see a window somewhere and think, “we want that one day in our home.” In the two years it took to build and the three months the family has lived in the home, they’ve been very appreciative of the local team that put the house together, the neighbors and the beauty of the area. “Ellis County, and Ovilla in particular, present an opportunity for those who would like to discover living in this beautiful county,” Ali said. “When people come to visit me from different parts of the country, they are amazed because of how beautiful it is. Because there is a special magic in this quiet, beautiful city and the people are above and beyond. They’re friendly, good neighbors.”
BUILDING INNOVATIONS Jim and the Sharafs wanted to incorporate many of the latest innovations available for residential construction. They made the house a “smart home” by installing touch screens throughout the house that can control music, cameras, gate operation, lights, the intercom system and more. “A smart phone or an iPad can be used to control the home systems from anywhere in the world,” Jim said, which can keep the house safe and protected even when the family is away. As a certified green professional and a graduate master builder, Jim wanted to keep the house as “green” as possible and the Sharafs were on board. They recycled the lumber and used it as mulch, incorporated several water management systems and dug a water well to help fill the lake, which is then used for irrigating the landscaping and grass. They also installed tankless water heaters that don’t turn on until there is a demand for hot water. Inside the house, the HVAC system has variable speed air conditioners and furnaces to control temperature, humidity and fresh air exchange. Instead of a vented crawl space, the home’s crawl space is sealed, which keeps out hot, humid air, eliminating condensation, musty smells, mildew and mold. “The attic is also a fully encapsulated attic,” Jim said. “The insulation has been moved from the ceilings of the rooms up to the rafters. This means that we do not have a “hot attic.” The attic temperature stays around 75 to 80 degrees yearround. The ductwork in the attic and in the crawl space is now located in totally conditioned area which makes it much more efficient. We used spray foam insulation in the crawl space, walls and rafters so that the home is fully encapsulated with foam insulation. This along with the house wrap means that most, or all, of the air leaks are sealed and provides for a very high R-value envelope.” Also, the air inside the home is exchanged every two hours to bring in fresh air and get rid of stale air. With some tight homes, fresh air is not circulated into the home and the stale air inside the house can become polluted and harmful to the homeowners. The air exchange is done in an energy-efficient way with the use of ERVs. Other “green” innovations include high-efficiency appliances, a durable tile roof, high-efficient wood windows with smart glass and wiring that is ready in case the Sharafs want to incorporate a solar-powered system. The home tested well above the energy star rating.
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