My House

Family gets cozy with country comforts

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published November 13, 2004

	[Times photo: Lance A. Rothstein]
	Jack Boyle and Deborah Gillars sit on the back porch of their San Antonio home with two of their children: Xander Boyle, 18, and Katie Boyle, 15.

SAN ANTONIO - Jack Boyle and Deborah Gillars spent a decade looking for the perfect country house in Pasco County.

In the end, they built their own dream house - right where they wanted it: in the historic 1880s Florida town where they had lived for two decades.

"We knew the place we wanted to be was San Antonio - it's home," says Boyle, 52, a professional potter who works from a studio in downtown San Antonio.

The couple loved the history of the 800-resident community, the friendliness of the residents, the way "if your child wandered too far down the street one of the other mothers would call you because they knew something wasn't right," Gillars recalls. "We tell our children that someday, when they grow up and move away, they will tell people about this wonderful little town, about its Old Florida history and how friendly people were."

So in 2002 they paid $27,500 for a one-third acre lot overlooking the old Jesse Jones frog pond with its graceful bald cypress rising from the middle. They hired local builder Pete Richter, whose work they admired, and set out to build a house ideal for displaying their collection of ceramics and paintings by Florida artists.

The house, which the couple designed themselves with the help of a professional draftsman, was profoundly shaped by the ideas in The Not So Big House, the 1998 book by Sarah Susanka that launched a national movement in home design. Its philosophy espouses quality over quantity, well-thought-out details and architectural beauty in a comfortable, but modestly scaled, setting.

"We started reading the book and realized the house had to feel right, though it was going to be three times the size of our previous house," recalls Gillars, 51. "We knew that we could have all the things we wanted and still have a comfortable space."

The couple had spent two decades raising their family in a small ranch house in San Antonio, diligently saving money, building equity and dreaming of someday buying a modest spread somewhere in the country. They were running out of room to display Boyle's cherished art collection (he's a self-described pottery junkie). Plus, there was no space for Gillars, a longtime art teacher at Zephyrhills High School and an artist herself, to have a studio of her own.

A deal to buy a house on the outskirts of San Antonio in the country fell through after 9/11: "They got nervous, and so did we," Boyle recalls.

But you know the drill: Good things happen when you're not looking.

A few days after they let go of their dream house, they found the vacant lot in town. They made a deal with the family who owned the land, and within days ran into Pete Richter, their favorite builder, in the post office.

"We never thought we'd build a house; you know the horror stories," Boyle says. But, he adds, once they decided to stay in San Antonio and build a home "everything fell into place."

Their new 2,800-square-foot house, completed in September 2003, is an homage to the turn-of-the-century Craftsman style, with its hardwood floors, stained glass accents and decidedly bungalow feel.

"From start to finish, we loved the entire experience of designing, planning and building a house," Boyle says. Overall, the design is plain with no fuss: "a basic box" Boyle explains, with a simple roofline, lots of light and "no unnecessary stuff."

For $170,000, they built the basic bones of the sophisticated house they always wanted. "That was before appliances, lighting, or any extras," stresses Boyle, who, along with Gillars spent the last year landscaping the exterior, something they couldn't afford initially.

In fact, the added details make all the difference: special lighting highlights artwork and pottery. Built-in shelving houses their collection of dozens of hand-made ceramic plates and mugs. Bathroom tiles made by Gillars at her husband's studio, San Antonio Pottery, depict the breathtaking scenes visible from their windows.

A downstairs living area that Boyle jokingly calls "the teen lair" provides entertainment space for their three children: Katie Boyle, 15; Xander Boyle, 18; and Sarah Boyle, 23.

A wooden staircase at the home's center features cobalt and green ceramic newel caps that Boyle made himself. A generous screened porch and downstairs porch add an additional 1,200 square feet of under-roof space and look out over a scene straight from a Florida Highwayman painting: a mossy pond, palm trees and rolling pasture. Citrus groves elbow the house from one direction. Cows graze at the edge of the back yard. And late on a cool November afternoon, the sound of bells from nearby Saint Leo University soothes like wind chimes.

Upstairs in Gillars' studio, she can see Lake Jovita from her easel. The late afternoon sun washes the yellow walls in pale light, creating the effect of a Dutch painting.

The views from the house are so lovely, Boyle jokes that they plan to stay until the end. When the kids move out, Gillars' parents will move into the downstairs rooms. Someday, Boyle plans to move his studio down there.

"Then, when we're really old - we'll move down there," he jokes. "And our kids can take care of us."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com My House features the people behind Pasco's housing boom.

[Last modified November 13, 2004, 00:50:28]