Not many homeowners are free of complaints about their home. There’s always something that’s just not quite right or doesn’t work for a family of four with two rough-and-tumble boys. But SMU alumna Catherine Colombo, mom to Nicholas, 11, and Julian, 8, and wife to restaurateur Patrick Colombo (owner of Cru Wine Bars, Victory Tavern and Steel) can’t say a bad word about the family’s custom-made Preston Hollow home. After 18 years of marriage, it seems the Colombos finally have a home that’s truly their own and reflects their personal style.
From conception to completion, the home’s construction spanned three years (it was completed just this past April), and is an artform all its own. With its stark white walls displaying various artwork, its swirling ironwork by Richard Potter, the match-booked marble in the office and floods of natural light, it’s a “basic meets complex, simple meets ornate” kind of home—a true juxtaposition of styles that functions and is both beautiful and utilitarian.
Two words come to mind as DallasChild tours the abode: Tailor made. The wants and needs of this family are carefully considered in the home’s make-up—everything from cozy nooks created for the boys to do homework to a spacious laundry room to house all the boys’ sports apparel and equipment in order to keep everything in one convenient place, a feat in itself for anyone who has active athletes at home.
And while artwork is a staple in the Colombo home, the family has a special fondness for one piece in particular: Robert Deyber’s The Trumpeter Swan (chosen with the help of budding art critic and oldest son Nicholas). The whimsical, but elegant painting hangs above the fireplace in the family room, a room that gets much mileage out of the Colombo foursome. To this cultured mom, it’s paramount that her boys be enlightened about the arts. She engages them in art purchases, surrounds them with music in the home and takes them to plays such as Les Miserables—in New York City, nonetheless! It was an experience that definitely made an impression on the ever-curious brothers.
As for living with kids (especially boys) in a home where all the walls are white and glass is rampant, Colombo is nonchalant when asked about the maintenance involved in keeping the scratches and scrapes minimal in their artfully designed home. “It’s so easy to touch up white paint,” she says calmly, “and even with the white marble floors, scuffs come up easy,” she adds. It helps that her boys have grown up around fragile furnishings, and, by their own mother’s admission, they “aren’t destructive boys.”
Even so, the brothers have their own suite for entertainment and an outdoor balcony on the second floor with access to the backyard below (by design) so they have their own space for when friends come over—or just to hang out and play their video games and the like. Ascend the stairs one more level, and you’ll find a loft space designed by their mom to house the boys’ many sports trophies and memorabilia. But the loft isn’t just to show off accomplishments, it’s designed to infuse light to that side of the house and strategically show off the staircase, which was inspired, in part, by the architecture of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Full of light, open spaces with views into the next living space from another, the house that the Colombos built is truly their home. And it’s a home that exudes the warmth and culture of its inhabitants—even under the scrutiny of the most scrupulous inspector.
