At this Las Vegas residence, a Calacata Carrara marble countertop holds up to a homeowner who ejnoys cooking.
Photo courtesy of Walker Zanger

By Jennifer Maciejewski

While some homeowners give each room of their home a distinctive look and feel, others take a thematic approach to interior design, pulling together several elements throughout the project to create a unified effect. And, just as the couple in the Kohler ad challenged the architect to design their home around a faucet, the project's inspiration can come from virtually any source — a work of art, the family pet or an eye-catching stone.

In some cases, it's the home itself that inspires the interior design, from its architecture to the land on which it's built.

Jamestown, R.I.
Greyledge, a six-bedroom private residence in Jamestown, R.I., goes to the greys, says homeowner Susan Little — hence the name. While the exterior features Atlantic Blue granite, Indiana buff limestone and South Bay quartzite as well as Vermont slate on the roof, both the color scheme and the materials influenced the design of the home's interior.

"Our home is fashioned after Sir Edwin Lutyens' English country manor style, where you take the surroundings and the building into consideration so that it flows together," Little says. To achieve that effect, Little incorporated indigenous stones into many aspects of Greyledge's exterior and landscape design and then brought some of those outside elements into the interior of the home.

For instance, the South Bay quartzite prominently used on Greyledge's exterior flows first into the home's sunroom, which features window seats fashioned out of the stone, and then into the kitchen, where the material resurfaces to create the fireplace. A raised hearth is made from polished granite.

This master bathroom tub deck features walls and base of Statuario Carrara marble supplied by Euromarble S R L, Carrara, Italy. The entire design centers on its black and white Walker Zanger basketweave floor.
Photo courtesy of Ken Lopardo Photography

The rest of the kitchen draws its influence from an Iznik tile mural that serves as the stove's backsplash. Breaking from the home's grey theme, the mural features a Tree of Life, with vibrant red apples and green leaves, as well as a bold-colored peacock, a symbol of good fortune, and snails, for luck.

Since she did not want a red or green kitchen, Little opted to use the Brazilian granite Amazon Star for the countertops. With its large, brown grain pattern and blue-hued quartz, the Amazon Star complements the mural's bright colors without overpowering the design or creating a red or green space.

"Picking stone is a process," Little says. "I went in with an idea of what I wanted, and I can tell you that 90 percent of the time, I didn't use it because it didn't work. Every room is driven off of something that I liked."

For instance, the first-floor master bathroom's design centers on its black and white Walker Zanger basketweave floor. Instead of carrying the basketweave to the edges of the room, Little used a Negro Marquina honed like the basketweave to create a border. Not only does the Negro Marquina complement the bathroom's Indian Black granite countertops, but the black marble's white veining creates a smooth transition from the floor to the Statuario Carrara marble slabs.

The wine cellar's vaulted brick ceiling and Carnelian granite counters are a stunning addition to the natural stone throughout this Rhode Island home.
Photo courtesy of Ken Lopardo Photography

To give the doorless walk-behind shower a uniform look, the installer book-matched each Statuario Carrara slab, lining up the veining to form a continuous line. "It's extraordinary," says Bob Packard, senior project manager for Kenneth Castellucci & Associates. "The way the veining goes up a piece of marble, through the molding and into another slab of marble, it all looks like it flowed from the same piece."

Other bathrooms had similar central features. Since Little wanted a blue powder room off the kitchen, she used an Azul Macauba granite to bring a beautiful blue into the space. Another shower's yellow flower and green leaf mosaic border tile inspired the use of Alba Di Chiara marble, which worked well due to its beige and green hues.

To complete the look, Little tied each bedroom to its accompanying bathroom by matching the fireplace surround to the bathroom's central stone.

Moving from the functional to the fun, Little selected a Costas Smeralda granite as the key material for the home's exercise room, which features a full bath and a swim-against-the-current pool. Though the granite on the walls is polished, Little opted to have the floor's Costas Smeralda sandblasted to improve traction when wet. The granite flows from the pool area into the neighboring bathroom, which even includes Costas Smeralda cubbies for stashing towels and a change of clothes.

The Rhode Island homeowner chose the soft hues of this Italian Alba Di Chiara marble to complement a mosaic border tile in the shower.
Photo courtesy of Ken Lopardo Photography

While natural stone permeates every corner of Greyledge, the house would not be complete without Carnelian, Little's favorite granite, which she discovered while working for Rock of Ages. Since Little prefers blue over red tones, she chose the variety quarried at Cold Spring Granite in Milbank, S.D. The material proved ideal for the wine cellar's counters.

"It's a very pretty house, and it's a stunning location," Little says. "We look west across Narrangansett Bay. Coming from Florida where we are basically flat and limestone, it's interesting to be up north where you actually have hills and granite and shale. We sit out on our Key West patio and watch the sunset."

Las Vegas, Nev.
Out west in Las Vegas, Nev., Michele Aloe used a unique palette of limestones and marbles to give her three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom loft-style home a warm look, which was no easy task, given its contemporary design. But, since Aloe works as a showroom manager for Walker Zanger, she knew just the right stones to use to pull it off.

"You can't throw an old-world feel at it by any means," Aloe says. For instance, to give the floors a contemporary feel, Aloe had aluminum inlays randomly placed throughout the green Seagrass limestone. And, just as Little brought the outside in, Aloe brought the Seagrass out into the courtyard, tying the material into the pool and decking.

Aloe also mixed metal with limestone in the master bathroom, putting a modern twist on a classic French material. Chosen for its honey-colored veining, the Beaumaniere limestone floor, vanity top and shower bring a warm glow to the bathroom. Stainless steel insets in the master shower, reminiscent of molten metal, and the quirk miter edge's sharp, clean lines work together to give the space a contemporary feel.

Natural stones combine to create a warm contemporary feel in Las Vegas.
Photo courtesy of Walker Zanger

But using metal isn't the only one way to achieve a contemporary look. In the guest master suite, where the primary materials include pebble rocks on the floor and Canadian Pierre Brun limestone vanity tops and shower walls, Aloe mixes glass tiles with the limestone to give the room a modern flare. The glass tile accents resurface in the powder bathroom, which also features a honed slate water accent along one wall that trickles down behind the toilet and stainless steel vanity. Another guest bathroom combines silver travertine mosaic walls and simple details with black Wenge cabinets and a white marble vanity to create a unique contemporary space.

Instead of the silver travertine, Aloe blended a white marble mosaic with a recessed channel and a precast mantle made out of limestone dust and concrete to construct the home's centerpiece: a 23-foot floor-to-ceiling fireplace. "It's quite a striking piece when you walk in the house," Aloe says.

The white marble recurs in the kitchen, where the island boasts a Calacata Carrara marble countertop. "I've always loved Calacata marble, and I really wanted to use it in this house," Aloe says. "Being in the stone business, I wanted to live with it, too, to see how hard I could abuse it. A lot of people want to do marble on kitchen countertops, and unless you live with it and understand it, it's hard to sell it."

The bathrooms in this Las Vegas residence utilize natural stone from travertine to limestone.
Photo courtesy of Walker Zanger

"We've been really rough on it, and it still looks great," continues Aloe, who adds that the Calacata marble's sage green veining complements the kitchen's Seagrass limestone floor. To give the marble a bit of texture and prevent any etching from becoming a problem, Aloe had an antique finish applied to the stone.

Although the original plan called for the remaining kitchen countertops to be constructed out of Lagos Azul limestone, Aloe changed her mind when she got her hands on a sample of a stunning new granite: Iron Red. "It's just absolutely beautiful," Aloe says. "It gave the kitchen a whole different feel."

The Iron Red repeats on the adjacent bar, which, though part of the kitchen, is tucked under the metal staircase. "Precise Stone Creations did a fabulous job on it," Aloe says. "We have sodas and beer on tap, and the bar top has a mitered flat edge. That Iron Red is really hard, so its fabrication was quite a handful, but it's beautiful.

"The home has an interesting combination of materials," Aloe continues. "It is a little unexpected, which is nice, but it is truly a warm contemporary feel."

Despite its modern design, the natural stone fireplace adds a warm element to this home.
Photo courtesy of Walker Zanger