Desert Design: Santa Fe style shines over Lake Mead

Custom-home builder Wayne Blue has an affinity for wood. A former sailboat maker, the longtime Boulder City resident understands the construction material's properties well.

Applying it to desert design seems counterintuitive to what builders have learned over the years -- stucco is preferred over bare wood for its ability to withstand dry heat and because it fits in with the Mediterranean style that has dominated residential construction for the past decade.

Blue, however, now has the finished product to make his case for an alternative: a recently completed Santa Fe/ Pueblo-style home overlooking Lake Mead in Boulder City that he built for Bob and Linda Faiss.

The Faisses, also longtime residents of the city, wanted a home to fit the desert in general and its view lot in particular, but something distinct and stylish as well. Although timid about building a custom home, Linda Faiss said the opportunity to have a lot overlooking the lake was too good to pass up.

"I did not want to build (a custom home). It was never my plan," Faiss said. "I'm an off-the-rack shopper."

Faiss quickly consulted with Blue and bought the lot on impulse, knowing only that she wanted "an adobe-style home" with some rustic touches.

"I asked him to build me a new `old' house," she said.

Using a computer program that renders a three-dimensional image of plans for the home, Blue went to work on what would be his showcase piece.

"He came back with a plan that was stunning," Faiss said. "People asked, `Is that the home of your dreams?' I said, `My dreams are not that good.'"

True to Faiss' wishes, the new home has several old components. Its roof features clay tiles recovered from an apartment complex that was slated for demolition. Complementary floor tiles are used throughout the home. Outside, rock formations were left undisturbed where possible and a dry gulch was established where a cement gutter might otherwise be.

The 4,040-square-foot home seems a perfect fit to its environment. It faces south and has a bank of windows on the north, which maximizes its hillside vantage point over the lake and minimizes direct sunlight indoors.

"The orientation of this lot and this home is fabulous," Blue said.

The back yard is continuous, but has several established gathering areas. A gazebo functions as an outdoor kitchen with its barbecue and sink. The tile for the patio matches the interior tile, offering the effect of an outdoor living room. The home's flat roof allows for an observation deck with an even better view of the lake.

Construction started in January 2001. Blue, serving as designer and builder, completed the project in November. The home, which also has an 850-square-foot garage, is valued at more than $1 million.

One of the home's more striking features, aside from its view, is its Pueblo-style design featuring plastered walls, extensive tile, and lots of wood.

This is not lumber yard wood. First of all, it has a finish and serves aesthetic as well as structural purposes. It also shows signs of age and many pieces are unusually large. In particular, nine wooden beams span the length of the ceiling throughout the home and protrude from the front and back walls.

Wood of such thickness -- each of the ceiling beams is 12 inches by 14 inches and 30 feet long -- is somewhat difficult to obtain. Blue trucked in the beams from Salt Lake City, where the wood was salvaged from a railroad trestle bridge built in the 1800s.

"To get wood timbers of that thickness, (the trees from which that bridge was built) must have grown from the 1600s," Blue said.

The beams, which slowly exude the salt they absorbed over many years on Utah's flats, are the largest of several significant-sized pieces of lumber found in entryways, decorative additions and the entire rear patio. Smaller planks are used elsewhere, such as those used copiously to line the ceiling between the beams.

Blue said the old bridge wood, which he bought from a salvage company, was a fortunate find. Wood of any significant thickness has been notoriously rare for decades.

"Reclaimed wood has become an industry because of the beauty in it. Most lumber is so bad these days that salvage businesses thrive. This has become quite a hot item," Blue said.

Linda Faiss, a partner with a local public relations firm, said she loves the warmth the wood provides and the way it complements the style of the home, which also makes extensive use of plastered walls and tile to create plenty of smooth, clean surfaces.

"I wanted hard surfaces, but not so cold as marble or granite that you see in a lot of homes, rather something warm and sculptured," Faiss said.

The hand-troweled walls are not like the lathe- and-plaster homes of decades ago. Blue used styrene for rounded shapes and regular lumber for structural support to create decorative and functional shapes and shelves throughout the home. Wall cutouts provide not only architectural niches, but book shelves, pot shelves, storage areas and bench seating on almost every wall including in the kitchen where it is used to form a booth.

"You just don't see that all too much anymore," Blue said of the plastered walls.

The home has some other practical touches not strictly tied to its style. The 17-foot high ceilings allow for skylights and small, high-set windows that keep the home bright, but reduce direct light on furnishings. Also, fencing rather than cinder block walls in the rear provides views of the lake from throughout the house and back yard.

Pueblo-style homes are common in other South- western cities, but rare in Southern Nevada, where one style has dominated for years.

"We seem to still be locked into the Spanish and Mediterranean look," Blue said. "We all got caught up in that look from Southern California. Nobody does anything differently."

Blue isn't opposed to the style, however. His latest project happens to be a Mediterranean-style custom home, also in Boulder City.

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