IT TOOK A VILLAGE A new estate on Siesta Key gives its owner the feeling of having retired to a small
town in Tuscany.

November 21, 1999
Section: SUNDAY REAL ESTATE
Page: 1I
 Dorothy Stockbridge-Pratt STAFF WRITER

Granite cobblestones - 210 tons of them - that had been on a downtown Chicago street since the turn of the
century were hauled to Siesta Key to recreate the streets of a Tuscany village.
It's a private village, the home of retired Provident Bank CEO Allen Davis and his wife, Judy, on bayfront Siesta.
The barrel tiles on the roofs are more than 100 years old and collected from monasteries and other old buildings
in France. "He wanted it to look like a real Tuscan village" because that region of Italy is a favorite place, said
Knick Barger, whose Youbar Builders spent more than two years on the project.
An older one-story house on the site was retained to keep the ground-level elevation necessary for the look. A
new building with a garage downstairs and an office/media theater upstairs conforms to the 13-foot flood zone
elevation. The third building in the complex is a carriage house, affording four more garage spaces as well as a
deck and card room above. The old-style wooden swing doors were equipped with modern remote-control
openers - no easy challenge.
The main gate, made of three layers of cypress weighing 900 pounds on each side, were the most difficult to
automate. The gate contains a smaller door for pedestrians.
Bill Tidmore, with partner Robert Henry assisting, was Davis' agent and supervisor for the project. Tidmore-Henry
& Associates located the special products needed to make the project authentic. The barrel tile, for instance, was
formed over the legs of various craftsmen some 100 to 200 years ago.
"To get the right shade, we ordered 40 percent cream, 40 percent rose and 20 percent yellow," said Tidmore,
who was involved in the project for three years. "The house we started with was an ugly ranch that had been
added onto three times. The function was bad."
Tidmore said that the creative process began with the Davises' desire for a larger, brighter kitchen. Henry
suggested putting the kitchen where the laundry room had been and enlarging it toward the boat basin.
The breakfast area developed as a 22-foot-tall turret with two stories of windows. The ceiling height and size of
the windows were revised as work progressed "because the scale was so critical," Tidmore said.
A matching turret is used for the spiral staircase to the office-home theater in the adjoining building. The stairway
rises counter-clockwise, which Barger says is the only thing he knows that's backward in the house. The home
theater highlights the sophisticated electronics found in the home. Shades drop, curtains close and lights dim at
the touch of a keypad. Advanced Audio equipped the theater with the latest satellite, cable and DVD technology.
Seats are large leather recliners. Fabric wall coverings enclose sound-deadening padded panels. Stereo sound
is piped all over the home. The "SmartHouse" functions can be adjusted from anywhere in the world.
The three-inch-deep plasma television set in the main house living room is set in an air-conditioned niche. It's
concealed by an oil painting that opens electronically like a curtain. The living room also features a stone
fireplace and four paddle fans hanging on their sides from the center beam.
An outdoor cafe, or indoor
Another one of the plasma televisions is in the "dining room," which appears to be be a vivid yellow, open-air cafe
facing the pool and bay. Screens and shutters descend electronically to enclose the space. Two candle
chandeliers can be lowered electronically so they can be lighted. Lights behind the shutters add to the outdoor
look of the room. Columns and walkways are coral.
The "dining room" floor and many of the interior floors are Sunset stone tiles from Italy, which Tidmore says were
probably quarried in Turkey. Burmese teak of random widths is used on the other floors, making the floors
impervious to water damage.
The entrance hall has a crotch-vault ceiling that slopes to the center from all four sides. An artist came from
Houston to paint the ceiling. The billiards room is all wood: teak floors, alderwood paneling and pecky cypress
beams. Most ductwork in the home is concealed. Wider planks that crack were purposefully used to look old.
Doors were custom-made in Phoenix from the knotty alderwood of the Pacific Northwest.
Many of the furnishings are imported pieces from Italy, or American pine. Tidmore and Henry brought back
antiques from the Chinese countryside on their annual trips there. The bath vanities are antique chests fitted with
solid-stone sinks from Italy. Other fixtures are reproductions. All the drapery rods are handmade iron. Mike Berlin
did extensive iron work for the home, including the turret's twisted "rope" iron handrail that Henry designed. The
home is energy efficient because windows are thermopane with low-e glass, and the plaster walls are clad in
Styrofoam to make them look thicker.
The exterior stucco was pre-dyed and then treated with acids to age it. All gutters and flashing are solid copper.
Korbels are copied from the John Ringling Hotel. The compound has a back-up generator.
The 100-foot pool is covered on the sides and bottom with one-inch Venetian tiles. The pool has two "reflecting
pool" fountains that retract to the bottom when swimmers are in the pool. Swim jets allow vigorous swimming in
place without disturbing swimmers at the other end of the pool. The inground pool cover also is automated.
The kitchen has already been recognized in national design competition. Cabinets handmade in Pennsylvania
are a mix of walnut in a natural stain and in darker green "so they won't look new," Tidmore said. Granite tops are
tropical green. The range is stainless steel. Other appliances are concealed behind wood doors. Besides a
regular Sub-Zero, the kitchen has two refrigerator drawers and two freezer drawers. Two sinks and two
dishwashers speed cleanup.
The compound has seven dishwashers total. All drinking water is filtered by reverse osmosis, and the baths have
instant hot water service.
The poker room above the four-car garage (with car wash) is knotty pine with mahogany window frames and a
teak floor. It has some of the best bay views.
Creative license
"It was a once-in-a-lifetime project to work on," said Barger, who declined to say what his budget was. "I've had
$1 and $2 million projects before, but nothing like this."
It was also the biggest residential project for Tidmore-Henry, which did a $10 million commercial project at Sun
City Center.
"Very few clients give you the creative license to do what we've done here," Tidmore said. "We were conscious of
the budget, but if it was important to the overall design and the value was there, we could do it."
Superlatives
Allen and Judy Davis' Tuscan compound on SIesta Key has:
* Two acres on the bayfront.
* About 9,000 square feet of living area cooled by 22.5 tons of air-conditioning.
* About 4,800 roof tiles.
* An open-air courtyard cafE with two tables: an inlay marble round table and a long table made from an old
French door supported by oxens' wood bows.
* Two 22-foot-tall turrets and four bedrooms. A staff bedroom is part of the kitchen addition.
* An iron-gated wine cellar off the reception room that cools and conceals six cases of wine.
* A gazebo that's actually a Bill Tidmore-designed Greek temple with hand-carved marble cream columns and
surround.
- Dorothy Stockbridge-Pratt


Caption: The breakfast area is in a turret with two stories of windows.
Allen Davis' Tuscan-styled `village' estate on Siesta Key has three buildings and took two years to build. From
the poker room, you can see the main house at left and the media room/home office building at center, above
parking.
STAFF PHOTOS/ROD MILLINGTON
The poker room, in the tower at left, is above a four-car garage and has mahogany window frames and a teak
floor. It has some of the best bay views of any room in the estate, and looks out over a gazebo.
Builder Knick Barger sits in the open-air cafe, which faces the pool and bay and has a fireplace and bar. `It was a
once-in-a-lifetime project to work on,' said Barger. `I've had $1 and $2 million projects before, but nothing like
this.'
The Davis compound on Siesta Key features barrel roof tiles that are more than 100 years old. The tiles were
collected from monasteries and other old buildings in France.
STAFF PHOTOS/ROD MILLINGTON
The living room has a stone fireplace and paddle fans. Many of the furnishings are imported pieces from Italy.