Jack Loynd and his wife Brigette were never happy living in a traditional home. “They all have the same standard rooms and brown kitchen cabinets,” he says. “We always felt it was boring and bland.”
So, when a seven-acre, densely wooded lot perched on a bluff with a view of the Missouri River in Chesterfield came on the market, they purchased it the same day. Jack owns several firms within the transportation industry.
After two years of planning their unconventional dream home and two years of building, they moved into a residence that defies traditional classification. Jack suggests, “super exceptional” might be a viable description.
The layout is so unexpected that a first-time visitor struggles to focus on one thing. To the left is the kitchen, where Jack had wanted zebra-striped cabinets. Brigette had always wanted a red kitchen, and the candy-apple red cabinets and red accent walls demonstrate who prevailed.
Nearby, a sliding glass door leads out onto a deck with a hundred-year-old oak growing through the center, turning the space into what seems more treehouse under a thick forest canopy.
Overhead, dangling starburst lights brighten and dim, just as if they were exploding fireworks. The floor, which looks like it is made of square, eighteen-inch industrial steel plates, is actually ceramic tile complete with the appearance of large metal screws in each of the four corners.
Beyond the kitchen and past an indoor window wall, a narrow balcony overlooks a mammoth party room twenty feet below. The balcony is outfitted with chairs, tables, and a popcorn-making machine on wheels. Also in the party room, which is considerably larger than needed for a half-court game of basketball, a basketball hoop is attached to the wall above a mural of a garage door. Jack’s guitars, which he does play, line the room above your head.
The room has been put to good use. Themed parties have included mini-golf tournaments, an Easter “Bunny Bash” where guests arrived with their personally designed set of ears, a “Burning Man” festival with guests dressed in elaborate costumes, and a yearly “Festivas for the Rest of Us” party every December.
“There is a lot more to see,” Jack says, leading the way up a spiral staircase and into the mammoth master bedroom. “We have a theme to each bedroom, and this is the beach room.” The bed faces the Missouri River, seen through nine wraparound windows. Another bedroom has an “Ooh La La” theme, and a third has a jungle theme featuring a leopard-patterned carpet and a bathroom vanity with inlaid wood forming the pattern of giraffe hide.
The stairway continues to a fourth-floor lookout tower and a spectacular 360-degree panorama of the countryside where the couple enjoys watching sunsets and storms brewing in the west.
Whimsical decor is found throughout the home, a visual testament to the couple’s sense of humor and enjoyment of life. A statue of the cartoon character Betty Boop welcomes guests onto the balcony overlooking the party room. A plucked rubber chicken lies prone on top of a kitchen cabinet. A painting envisions what each of the couple’s four cats would look like as members of the rock band KISS.
Construction of the 5,600-square-foot home presented some challenges. First, several builders felt the property was too steep to build a road to the building site. The Loynds leased the machinery and built the driveway themselves, incorporating four 180-degree turns into the path before it reaches the house. “It means we get snowed in for days at a time,” Jack says. “But that is fun, too.”
Another challenge was designing the west wall of the home to hold back the immense pressure of the cliff that continues to rise above the house. The fortress-like wall is eighteen-inches thick with one-inch reinforcing steel bars placed every six inches.
A third hurdle was how to make the air conditioning and heating system efficient. There are so many steel beams it was impossible to route the duct work so it would be most productive. “We ended up with six separate heating and cooling units,” Jack says.
The house is a huge leap from the architecture and culture familiar to Brigette as a child. Adopted from Vietnam, she was raised on a dairy and crop farm in Illinois.
“My parents were very traditional in the type of home they lived in, and they only had neutral decor,” she says. “They thought we were absolutely nuts. I remember my mother asking me why the game room was lime green! Now they love it. On the farm, I dreamed of moving to a big city. Now I would not change this life and home for anything. I love the seclusion, and I can even see the farmers far below disking their fields. That reminds me of home. But, this is so not a farm,” she says with a smile and a laugh.
