Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Homes

Less is more in this waterfront home

With understated design and decorations, a couple celebrate their first Christmas in a new home.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published December 23, 2005

TAMPA - When Chris and Stan Adwell host their annual Christmas Day dinner for 40, they will ask their family and friends to join in their favorite ritual of thanks. Usually it's a poem they take turns reading aloud before a homemade dinner of prime rib, wild rice, and mushroom-and-sausage stuffing.

"Christmas really is a time that's about family, about giving and being grateful," says Chris, a Brazilian interior designer. "We think about our lives and what we have."

The Adwells, both 37, know a thing or two about being grateful. They live in a newly built home in Dana Shores, a tucked-away waterfront neighborhood not far from the Courtney Campbell Parkway.

Their house serves as a portfolio of sorts for potential clients who come to see Chris' trademark design style, considered low-key and sophisticated with an international flair. It's also home to a deeply in-love couple and their blended family: daughter Isabella, 21/2, and Weston, 10 (Stan's daughter from a previous marriage).

On a chilly afternoon in December, their front foyer glowed with tiny white lights twined around a 10-foot Fraser fir that Chris decorated with her usual simple elegance: handpainted matte-gold ornaments, dried plants resembling tall feathers and clusters of grape-style lights for a hint of jewel-toned color.

"Nothing too shiny or kitsch," Chris explains. "I always think less is more."

That goes for tabletop decorations she deliberately keeps simple: A few elegant pedestal glass bowls are filled with ornaments; simple signs on the dining room table and mantel express holiday wishes. Ropes of evergreens swirl around banisters and small Christmas trees glow in the bedrooms. On the balcony terrace, with its long view of the glittering causeway at sunset, a farmhouse-style table is set with holiday red goblets, hurricane lamps, organza napkins and a bamboo runner.

"Finely honed, elegant and simple - that's exactly what she wanted to capture in this house," explains Stan, 37, an entrepreneur who owns his own design-engineering firm, ESI International.

The rest of the house reflects that same philosophy. Stan credits Chris for the way it looks; Chris says she couldn't do it without Stan, who helped select everything from paint to accessories to furniture to carpeting.

Their relationship is the result of a fated romance so unusual that the Wedding Channel wanted to come to Brazil to film their marriage ceremony.

Chris, originally an equine-reproduction veterinarian with a doctorate in the subject, is the daughter of a prominent Rio de Janeiro home builder and granddaughter of a former top Rio politician.

She met Stan in 1993, while enrolled in an intensive six-month English course at Eckerd College, where Stan was a full-time student. Stan got a glimpse of Chris on her first day of classes as she breezed past him on her way back from a school sailing trip.

"I just knew the minute I saw her," he says. "I really believe fate played a role. There's no other explanation."

The two dated for six months, communicating in sign language because she wasn't fluent in English.

When Chris had to return to Brazil to begin her veterinary practice, they decided to call things off, parting reluctantly and communicating once a year for six years.

"One day I got a letter in the mail from Stan," Chris remembers. "It said, "Don't read this if you're married by now.' Well, I wasn't married so I read the letter."

Chris informed Stan that she would soon be in the United States giving a lecture on equine reproduction at the University of Colorado at Fort Collins.

That was in 1999. They were married six months later.

After their whirlwind second courtship, Chris decided to put her veterinary career on hold to relocate to the United States to be with Stan. The couple lived in Lutz before eventually settling in Dana Shores.

The neighborhood of traditional Florida-style ranch homes for years went unnoticed even by longtime area residents, despite waterfront views and breathtaking vistas of the causeway.

"I had friends who had lived in Tampa all their lives and weren't sure where the neighborhood was," Stan remembers.

They chose Alvarez Homes to build their 3,185-square-foot house, which Chris decorated with an eye toward her international roots. It's overall feel, is Italian, Brazilian, Balinese and Mediterranean, a blend of the decorating styles Chris grew up with, Stan says.

The two-story, rustic-yellow home emphasizes comfortable indoor/outdoor living with wrap-around verandas and an outdoor fireplace and lagoon-style pool. Inside, a melding of carved Balinese furniture, family antiques and warm colors create an atmosphere that makes guests want to linger.

The study showcases the prized horse sculptures - some inscribed with poetry - that Stan has given Chris over the years. On the patio, a child's table and chairs that Chris handpainted for her daughters.

The couple explains that nothing is so fussy or formal that friends don't feel like they can relax.

"We're a drop-in kind of couple," says Stan, who grew up in nearby Baycrest and graduated from Leto High School. "Our friends know they can come by anytime."

Before moving into the house in July, Chris arranged fresh flowers, lit candles and went from room to room and prayed for blessings and safety for her family. Religious symbols from Buddhas to a rustic cross by the front door hint at Chris' deep spirituality.

This Christmas, she says, the family will give extra thanks for their home, which blends lives, love and cultures. Outside on the terrace, Chris planned to decorate with Santa sacks and a sleigh, though never too many holiday accessories.

"I don't like it overdone - it's nice to just have the feeling of Christmas," she says.

And, of course, there will be the annual family reading of the poem, which as of last week had not been selected. What matters is the thought, she explains, and group participation. If anyone thinks they're getting out of it, forget it, she says with a laugh.

"Even the kids get dragged into it."

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 09:27:09]