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HOLIDAY - When Tampa Bay area interior decorator Jay Tenuta designed his 3,500-square-foot home in Gulf Trace, he wanted the same thing he wants for all his clients: An authentic look that mirrored the soul of its occupants.
For Tenuta that meant a latte and cappuccino color scheme, polished travertine floors, halogen museum-style lighting and an eclectic mix of furniture: from a classic cocktail table by designer Isamu Noguchi to a custom dining-room table - a black four-column base topped with a cherry slab - designed by Tenuta and his design associate, Kathy Hsu.
"The whole house reflects our firm's creativity," says Tenuta, who owns LaBella Interiors, a design firm and showroom on Gunn Highway in Odessa.
In other words, he explains, he was striving for "comfortable, classic, elegant and easy to live in."
Tenuta and his partner, real estate developer, Bernie Conners, bought their house unfinished in Dec. 2004, from a local builder who had purchased one of the last lots in the neighborhood of about 400 homes off U.S. 19. Conners, a gifted renovator, helped transform the already beautiful spaces into something even more spectacular: A masculine and majestic house that flows seamlessly from one room to the next and works well for their busy lives.
Even the colors and fabrics, though elegant, are meant to be lived with.
"We chose a lot of low-maintenance materials - suede, leather, chenille, berber and travertine," says Tenuta, 50, who owned his own design business in Chicago before moving to Odessa seven years ago to be closer to family.
His design shop, in a whimsical Florida-style building with a tin, cracker roof - attracts clients from all over the Tampa Bay area, although a large percentage live in the north Tampa and Pasco area including Wesley Chapel and Land O'Lakes. He said that he's strategically looking at the 54-41 corridor for clients because of the area's exponential growth.
His own home caught his eye last fall though he had just purchased another home in a nearby development - Key Vista - a few months before.
"We weren't even looking, but we kept watching the house as it went through several Realtors," he recalls. "There was something about this house that made us fall in love with it. Even though it was grand before, we knew the finished product would be even better."
Though the builder has "put his heart and soul into the house," particularly into the fine custom woodwork throughout, the bathrooms and kitchen required completing "and the closets all needed doors," Tenuta recalls with a laugh.
Renovation was extensive and exhaustive, getting the house to the point that would make a designer happy.
The process took seven months from start to finish.
Tenuta's partner, Bernie Conners, acted as general contractor on the job, overseeing the painting, electrical, plumbing and soffit work, as well as laying the travertine marble floors himself.
The butterfly granite kitchen counters and cabinets were already in place, although the pair chose to enhance the room by adding glass-front doors and adding a bar area in the same materials in the family room.
In the living room, which Kathy Hsu merrily nicknamed, "The Barnes and Noble Room," because of its richly detailed library look, they installed a dark cherry inlaid wood floor, black crown molding, silk custom drapes and oversized elegant finials painted in a black matte, gold and crackle-brown finish.
Hand picked choices abound: A hand-painted chandelier was custom made in Miami. An Art Deco-style love seat made in Italy. In the powder room, a modern glass vessel sink with a Scandinavian style faucet are offset "by a very traditional gold-leaf mirror" Tenuta explains. "It's really a mixture of modern and traditional throughout."
For example, in the bedroom, the leather-upholstered headboard is offset by an ultra-modern metal sculpture by an Arizona artist Tenuta admires. On the floor a black and white cowhide rug adds modern whimsy over the sisal-Berber carpeting
On the patio, with its outdoor kitchen and mixture of sleek Brown Jordan furniture and 1950s Charles Eames chairs, hang two abstract paintings painted one afternoon on a whim by Hsu, who is also an artist.
"I was standing out in the yard one day and was inspired to create paintings for the porch," she recalls, laughing. "Jay ran to Michael's and bought canvas and paint."
Almost everything in his house - with the exception of Hsu's patio paintings - Tenuta notes, is available through his shop La Bella Interiors.
Tenuta, a warm, energetic, intensely creative man with the kind of genuine passion for his work that can't be taught, often doesn't arrive home until 8 at night.
The great thing about interior design, he explains, is that "you feel like you create backdrops for people's lives. Most people already have nice things, they just need to learn to organize, display and edit."
His own house, he said, needed to be a sanctuary, where he could completely relax, if only for a few hours each day.
A new Zen garden with a fountain helps, though Hsu jokes she told him he definitely needs "his own Buddha."
Still, the real question begs to be answered: Is it hard for a designer to design his own house? The answer is yes, yes, yes.
There are so many choices, he adds, "so many things come across my desk, I have access to everything. Multiply, what you as a consumer see in the stores and then multiply it by the thousands."
He said he simply had to find what was personally soothing, classic and beautiful and go with it.
And the end result is just what he desired: "I'm enjoying this house the most of anywhere I've lived since moving to Florida."
Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com