Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 21, 1991 TAG: 9104180318
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY/ HOMES EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At 9,000 square feet, it is the largest house on the Historic Garden Week Tour in Roanoke. It also is the most controversial, having once been uhe subject of neighbors' unsuccessful complaints to the city zoning board that the house violated height restrictions and blocked their views.
The house also turned heads in its traditional neighborhood because its exterior is a showplace of products generally reserved for commercial structures. Glass blocks wrap the corners of the building, which is finished with Dryvit, a stucco-like product. Balcony railings, of which there are many, are metal. The roof is hand-hammered copper.
The house is the fifth one the couple have built in their 20 years of marriage, and after only 2 1/2 years in it, they already are planning their sixth. The South Roanoke home is for sale for $1.3 million.
The new house won't be half as large as the current one because the couple's only daughter, Michelle, is a high-school senior and soon will be leaving home, Ron said. The new house will be modern, however, in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Ron is a building contractor developing Strawberry Mountain in Roanoke County. Bonnie owns Patina, a clothing and gift shop in Roanoke's Market Square and at Valley View Mall. Their South Roanoke home combines their talents and interests.
Architect John Fulton helped with the basic design, but many of the details are pure Ron Jackson.
"I slept with this house," Jackson said. On several occasions, he said he sent the workers to another of his projects for a few days while he decided what to do next.
"Everybody who rode by said we were crazy to build it," Ron said. The project "was like a dream. When I woke up, I probably wouldn't have done it."
It took almost a year to build the house. In its early stages, before the exterior walls went up, Bonnie recalled telling her husband, "It looks big."
He replied that it wouldn't look so big with walls.
After the walls were up, she again mentioned that the house looked big. He told her it wouldn't look big after it was finished.
"When I found out it had 9,000 square feet, I said, `I KNEW it was big.'" The average house in the area would be less than a fourth that size.
The house has only 10 rooms, which means there aren't many interior walls, and there is a great deal of openness. Light is everywhere and so are views - out to the mountains, to the Roanoke Regional airport and down into the first-level swimming pool with its black interior.
Ron said the visual pleasures make him "lighten up" at the end of a long work day. Bonnie said she never hated the idea of moving so much before.
The house begins its march up the hillside with a garage, shop and store room at the pool level. The first floor includes a two-car garage, and the remainder is a meandering family room, complete with a sitting area, a fireplace with its own brick seating, a burled walnut bar and a pool table from The Sportsman, one of Roanoke's better-known hang-outs.
The pool table and art deco light fixtures from a New York theater are among the finds the couple has displayed throughout the house.
There is an elevator, but one of its focal points of the house is a winding staircase that flows to the second and third levels. The fourth-level loft, which houses a fully equipped gym, is reached only by a spiral ladder.
The loft will not be open to the public, but the remainder of the house can be toured.
The second-floor decor makes use of blacks, grays and peach colors. The kitchen cabinets are black, the living room includes a peach suede sectional sofa and a glass-topped coffee table with black panthers as the base. Also on this level is Michelle Jackson's bedroom and bath suite.
Black has been used to trim the woodwork in the third floor master bedroom suite, which features an acrylic oversize poster bed. A master bath with platform Jacuzzi and shower and dressing facilities is on one side of the bedroom; on the other side is a television room with matching adjustable lounge chaises. There is a guest suite on this floor also, and built-in cabinets in the hallway contain family collections of Madam Alexander dolls, netsukes (carved Japanese sash ornaments) and 1950s model cars.
by CNB