The Grand Tour

When a new job brought Mary Wilson to Southwest Florida in the spring of 2004, she faced a dilemma many first-time residents confront. Her new home was nothing like her old one. It was a lot newer and, like most homes here, featured large windows and walls of sliding glass. "I came from the Washington, D.C., area, where I lived in a 120-year-old townhouse built by the same fellows who built the dome on the Capitol," says Wilson, the corporate vice president of advertising and marketing for Robb & Stucky Interiors, one of Florida's leading furniture and interior design studios. "Most of us aren't originally from around here so it's helpful to get some ideas of how to furnish a home here."

Of course, working in an environment promoting beautiful homes and interior design certainly worked to her favor, and Wilson said she also got a lot of decorating ideas from last year's Greater Naples Luxury Home Tour, a three-weekend event in February that opened the doors to some of the area's most luxurious houses in some of the most prestigious communities. Last year's event, like this year's, is co-sponsored by Robb & Stucky.

"It was a great opportunity to see some wonderful homes and get ideas," Wilson says. "The grandeur of these homes and their communities is impressive."

Offered this year on Feb. 3-5, 10-12 and 17-19, the 2006 Luxury Home Tour features 10 luxury model homes priced from $1.5 million to $3.8 million. The self-guided tour allows participants to explore each home at their leisure.

Built by nine of the area's most recognized builders, this year's tour models include a luxury villa, single-family custom and estate homes, and an estate-size condo overlooking the Caloosahatchee River. The homes range from 3,340 to nearly 7,000 square feet of living space and showcase the latest in design, architecture and building with creative new floor plans that emphasize outdoor spaces.

Game rooms decked out with billiards and poker tables, plasma TVs and wet bars appear in four of the homes, creating what builder David Tricker, president of Sovereign Homes, calls a "play room for wealthy big boys." His model, the Rembrandt in West Bay Club, offers a second-floor billiards and game room that men-and some ladies-will love.

The octagonal-shaped game room of Westpoints Development's Marina Cay in The Moorings is linked to the family room by a lounge with a large bar and a wine grotto. Three sets of French doors open to an outdoor living room and gazebo with a fire pit, allowing the party to spill outdoors.

The tour homes' interiors embrace different themes, from Old Florida plantation and tropical to contemporary and Italian farmhouse-all of them embodying Southwest Florida's favorite catchphrase: "casual elegance." Trudy Slean, director of business development for London Bay Homes, says the builder's two models-the Capriano, a luxury villa in a lakefront village in Mediterra, and the Abriana, a single-family home in Mediterra-represent a cohesive collaboration between builder, architect, professional colorist, landscape architect and interior designers.

"The senior designers at Romanza partnered in the process from the beginning," she says. "We used materials such as tiles, flooring, ceiling treatments and cabinetry to embrace the romance of Old Florida with excitement and conveniences for today's homeowners. While the Capriano conveys a relaxed tropical feel with its colors and furnishings, the Abriana offers a hint of an Italian farmhouse with more of a collected traditional d?or."

Contemporary design is found in Bordeaux Homes by Vision Builders' Leonardo Fiore, another model in Mediterra. Created by Interior Elements by Valentine & Stone, the design, rendered in a palette of pewter, brown and black, offers an interesting contrast to the home's otherwise Old World and aged-looking architecture and ambiance. Lead designer Michael Stone uses mirrors, highly polished marble floors in swirls of browns and whites and his signature painted ceilings and affection for geometry throughout the model's 4,060 square feet of living space. He also converts a fourth bedroom into a media room, complete with leopard-clad bathroom, and he uses futuristic lighting fixtures to cast just the right light.

The Sutera, a condo within the Paramount high-rise in Gulf Harbour, also has an Old Florida feel, one that its developer, The Ronto Group, describes as Old Florida plantation-style river house, with its dark wood floors and furniture. Robin Driskill, director of sales and marketing for The Ronto Group, says the home's decorative cove ceilings, crown molding, granite and marble countertops and Rotpunkt kitchen cabinetry appeal to the typical buyer-discerning clients who want an estate-sized home with the low maintenance of a condo.

The tour homes prove that dining rooms are still in demand. Though some Florida homes have recently abandoned the formal living room or parlor in favor of a great room or outdoor living room, most tour models make a commitment to formal dining. It's usually the one room that gets the most lavish attention. Case in point: the dining room of the San Raphael, an estate home built by Cornerstone Developers on a large lakefront home site in Miromar Lakes Beach & Golf Club. Its entrance, an arched entry framed by keystone columns, sets the stage for elegance-a two-tiered coffered ceiling with floating crown molding, an elaborate chandelier and a decorative curved art niche adorned with keystone and mirrors. An intricate inlay accents the stone floor, and an arched opening is woven with iron scrollwork.

Living rooms are also lavish in detail and almost always showcase the pool and water features-showing an understanding of why many of us are here in the first place. Don Koogler, president of Koogler Homes, handcrafted the two-story stone fireplace in the living room of his tour model, the Nautilus I in Cape Coral. A master craftsman, Koogler also makes his mark on the floor of the second-floor billiards room, cut crosswise to show off the movement of the wood. The home also boasts a two-story mural depicting broken columns, tropical landscaping and a waterfall.

Water views are highlighted in Harbourside Custom Homes' Vill-ano IV in Quail West. The black-bottom surfaces of the rockscaped pool and spa recreate a tranquil lagoon that's complemented by tropical foliage, rock formations and a waterfall. It's a setting that's well suited to Southwest Florida.

The rambling floor plan of the Nettera, which at 10,300 total square feet is the largest tour home, wraps around the pool, creating colonnades on each side, leading to a pavilion with summer kitchen, storage and bathroom. Built by Apple Development, it's on a large wooded lakefront lot in Homes of Islandia.

Wilson says visiting the tour homes is a great way to see the pages of shelter magazines come to life. "People love looking through home magazines and seeing beautiful homes," she says. "The Luxury Home Tour gives them the chance to see the real thing."