Riverside Haven
Champlin home embodies family values
By James Walsh
Photo by Jon Huelskamp, Landmark Photography
This design initially presented a challenge for Brent Parent, owner of Parent Custom Homes. While lovely, the homeowners told Parent that the design wouldn’t work because they check on their children several times during the night. Going up and down two grand staircases each time didn’t seem practical, says Parent. Solution: Allow the parents to pass through the nursery to the children’s area on the second floor.
Family is critical to the owner, who emigrated to the United States from East Africa 16 years ago, progressing from washing dishes on the late shift to working for the Minneapolis schools, driving a cab, and finally starting his own school transportation company. The home needed to accommodate his wife, mother, four children—ages 10, 5, 3, and 9 months—and his adult brother from time to time.
The family wanted a home that would bring them together while also providing the luxury they all have worked so hard to attain. As with the pass-through nursery, mission accomplished.
The home’s impressive foyer, with its twin staircases, 22-foot ceiling, and granite floor with inlaid mosaic medallion, opens to the great room. There, tall windows display dramatic views of the river. The room’s cultured stone fireplace, tiger-wood floors, and built-in cabinetry of knotty alder add further distinction. Niches, arches, and curved walls and soffits soften and warm the space.
The open floor plan allows an easy flow from the great room to the kitchen, where double islands, granite countertops, and alder cabinets sit. A four-season porch just off the kitchen is paneled in knotty cedar and features another fireplace with a polished black walnut mantel carved from a tree previously located on the lot.
Photo by Jon Huelskamp
Landmark Photography
Downstairs, a second bedroom suite with a walk-in shower and stackable washer and dryer will be the part-time home of the owner’s brother. A unique, curved water fountain on the wall announces a lower-level second great room that has walkout access to the backyard and a second kitchenette. Space that could serve as a guest bedroom instead will be the family’s Zen room, Parent says, complete with indoor landscaping composed of boulders and plantings.
The private spaces on the second floor include an owners’ suite with slate blue walls and soft Berber carpeting. The adjoining nursery connects to the children’s wing, where the boys’ and girl’s bedrooms unfold. The girl’s room features a custom-made round bed and cabinet-style closet doors that open to create study space. Past a second-level laundry area, a 900-square-foot children’s playroom above the garage is “an apartment in itself,” Parent says. Another guest bedroom overlooks the street at the front of the house.
The homeowner is very happy with the feeling of family—and the sense of success—that his luxurious home conveys. “Having this home, where I can have my family together, allows me to live the American dream,” he says.
James Walsh is an education reporter at the Star Tribune.
Builder
Parent Custom Homes, LLC
Home location
Champlin
Suppliers
Anchor Block
Cambria
Cityscape Painting
Guyer’s Builder Supply
Harmony Melamine Creations
James Hardie Siding Products
Orion Home Systems
Peters Billiards
6 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
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