Thomas A. Edison once said that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation. The prolific inventor wasn’t writing about building a custom home, but the missive would nonetheless resonate with the team responsible for designing and constructing this new home in Frontenac. 

After 43 years in a Los Angeles studio dwelling, the thought of spreading out in a traditional St. Louis home sounded blissfully appealing to this California transplant. A graduate of Mizzou, she moved out to L.A. after college in 1976, where her father had been transferred. After working at CBS network for 15 years, she blossomed into a former co-producer for the game show The Price Is Right, where she worked for 28 years. Admittedly, after more than four decades, the L.A. traffic did her in—and eventually drove her back home. 

The family of six living in this Fenton home is busy with work, school, sports, family gatherings and the hundreds of aspects of daily life in raising four daughters under the age of 14.

As the parents approached the idea of building a new home, they planned long term. They wanted a home their girls would return to as adults with their own families. And both the husband and wife have large extended families that continue to grow, and the couple wanted to host family get-togethers with ease.

Sometimes, it pays to wait—especially when hunting down your ultimate dream home. After a two-year search involving multiple options and communities, St. Louis couple Wendy and Mark Gellman still couldn’t find the features and feel they were looking for. But things started to click when they heard about the newly anticipated vision for downtown Chesterfield and saw previews of the Waterfront at Wildhorse Village. “Once we saw the plans, we could not unsee them,” says Mark.

        An idyllic setting and great bones are sometimes all it takes to make a home suitable for renovating rather than replacing. Overlooking the picturesque grounds of a local country club, with a back yard nestling into a private wooded oasis with a creek, this late 1960s Neoclassical-style dwelling seemed a perfect candidate for a fresh yet refined makeover. Its unique features include subtle level changes on the first floor, with the foyer and east/west passageways at one height and sinking two steps down into the primary spaces.

Opportunity literally knocked at the door for St. Louis couple Bradley Fratello and Doug Moore. While admiring their dwelling in The Grove from the street, a stranger walked up to their front door and offered to buy it for a generous price well above what they had spent building it. Quickly seizing the moment, they accepted the offer and moved into a condo in the Central West End. After a couple of years, they still craved city life but preferred to have more land with a seamless indoor/outdoor connection.