The 3-bedroom, 3.5-bath lakefront home at 1209 Islander Way was custom-built by Palm Coast Development for Joe and Maureen Kane, and the couple’s loving attention to its design is evident throughout the house and outdoor living areas.
It isn’t that there is a charming detail here and there as one walks through the house. Instead, in room after room, the colors, materials, design features and spatial relationships make the home dense with charm, a delight to the eye and spirit.
The library is a perfect example. In that small 14-foot by 12-foot room, gorgeous cherry-wood shelves and cabinets rise up from a dark hardwood floor to a white coffered ceiling with a rattan ceiling fan. With a ladder that rolls along a brass rail to reach the high shelves, the room evokes a classic English country house. At the same time, with the rattan fan, dark hardwood and a private patio with a wall fountain, there is something ineffably tropical about the space.
It is a great room.
“It is a wonderful place to put on some light music and read in the evening,” says Joe Kane, a retired Wyndham Hotels executive and former chairman of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
Another tropical feature is the rock waterfall that flows into the pool on the main lakefront patio.
Golden-colored stone lines one side of the freeform pool, rising up into a natural-looking escapement several feet high. Water gushes and trickles out along its length, appearing to flow from the lake into the pool.
“That was my idea,” says Kane. “I wanted it to look like the water was coming from the lake.”
The patio, pool and lake beyond are all visible from the living room, dining room and kitchen and the naturalistic waterfall enlivens and transforms the view, making the whole interior/exterior environment more atmospheric and interesting.
The home’s setting is as charming as its architectural features. It has 250 feet of curvilinear frontage on the lake, which wraps around two sides the lot.
“We bought the lot in 2005 because of the way the water wraps around it, and we designed the house to take advantage of the setting,” says Kane.
“The wildlife we see is amazing. There are white pelicans, great blue herons, owls and osprey. It is like having a private Audubon wildlife sanctuary.”
The grounds along the lake are beautifully landscaped with mature plantings and a number of indigenous live oaks that grew here before the house was built.
“The twisting old live oaks were another thing that attracted us to the lot,” Kane says. “I love those trees.”
The live oaks are one of the first things a visitor sees when pulling into the pavered motor court.
Fine architectural details are evident before even getting out of the car.
The dark mahogany-colored garage doors are designed so they appear to be made out of planks, creating a carriage house appearance and adding to an island ambiance that is enhanced by a pineapple escutcheon on the wall above the entry and a wrought-iron weather vane atop a cupola at the peak of the roof.
The handsome double front doors are mahogany with craftsman-style leaded glass.
Passing through them, a visitor enters a foyer with an en-suite guest or child’s room to the right and the library to the left.
The bedroom has a walk-in closet with built-in cabinets and shelves and French doors that open onto the pool patio. The attached bathroom has an outside door as well, allowing it to serve as pool bath.
The library is across a hallway from the foyer. To the left, the hallway leads to the 20-foot by 26-foot two-car garage. To the right, it becomes a gallery that extends along the living room, dining room and kitchen to end at the family room.
Walking along the gallery toward the family room, the pool patio is to the right, accessible through three sets of French doors. On the left, the gallery is open to the living room, dining room and kitchen, which are also open to each other. The rooms are delineated within the common space by columns and grey marble trim that segments the white marble floor.
The living room is elegant with a traditional white wooden mantle and built-ins surrounding a gas fireplace, triple crown molding, a deeply-coffered, white-beamed ceiling and another rattan ceiling fan.
The kitchen “is a chef’s dream with richly finished cabinetry, flowing granite countertops with counter seating, custom inlaid tile backsplash and professional appliances, including a Sub Zero refrigerator and Wolf six-burner gas cooktop with ornamental oven hood,” according to Sorensen.
Open to the dining room across a serving counter on one side, the kitchen is also open to the 16-foot by 18-foot family room, which has a built-in entertainment center and French doors that lead onto a screened lanai with a fireplace that makes it a year-round space.
There is a powder room off of the family room and the staircase to the second floor goes up from an alcove between the family room and kitchen.
The second floor features a large sitting room at the top of the stairs with a covered balcony overlooking the pool and lake, and an en-suite guest or child’s room with a second covered balcony that offers south-facing lake views.
The master suite is beyond the family room on the first floor. The bedroom opens onto a private, south-facing patio near the lake shore. The walk-in closet has very nice wooden built-in shelves and cabinets and the bathroom is highlighted by a huge Jacuzzi tub set back in a lake-facing bay window area that invites long luxurious soaks.
“I think this house is one of the best bargains on the barrier island,” says Kane, who credits his wife Maureen’s design sense for most of the home’s ambiance and appeal. “She has always known how to make a house a home.”
The Kanes are big fans of River Club and Vero Beach. “We love it here,” says Joe Kane. “The location is perfect. We are members of the art museum and Riverside Theater, and we will be staying in Vero Beach after we sell our house.”
The Kane’s’ children and grandchildren have all visited them at their River Club home and they all love it too, Kane says. But they are increasingly busy with their own lives and can’t visit as often as they once did.
“We have decided to downsize a little bit,” Kane says. “We are working with Matilde Sorensen to find the right place for us. Bent Pine is very nice and we like Grand Harbor area but we are still looking.”
