Victor and Barbara Aprea had no intention of moving to Vero Beach. They came at the behest of friends for a visit. That’s when they discovered everything our little seaside town offers. Initially, they thought they would just buy a vacation home. But such is the spell that Vero casts, they decided within a few weeks to sell their home in New Jersey and move here permanently.
“Vero is a really special place, especially when you drive from U.S. 1 over those bridges. The stress just goes away,” says Victor.
A number of their friends from the Bernardsville, N.J., area had already made Vero home.
As they looked for their own home, the couple connected with Realtor John M. Stringer at AMAC Alex MacWilliam Real Estate.
Stringer thought the house at 520 Sundance Trail in Indian Trails would be perfect for them.
“When we were looking, I told them there’s a property in a wonderful community that nobody can figure out what to do with it,” says Stringer. “They weren’t here for more than 15 minutes before they said, ‘This is it!’ They could see the great potential.”
That’s when Victor says they “reinvented” the house. They took a tired 1988 ranch that had undergone numerous piecemeal renovations and created a wonderful British West Indies-inspired cottage.
“This house has been redone from top to bottom, inside and out, with new plumbing and electric, new windows and doors,” says Stringer.
“It’s a house that reveals itself when you walk through it. You would never anticipate this being here when you pull up,” he continues.
Victor merged his eye for graphic design and his love of gardening to create an aesthetic that worked with the existing floorplan.
“Fortunately, we have wonderful friends who are gallery owners [J.M. Stringer Gallery], interior designers, architects and engineers; and everybody gave a little piece of themselves to help us get through this,” says Victor.
When you approach the home, located on a cul-de-sac at the end of a street lined with moss-covered, century-old oaks, you see a quaint cottage set amid lush landscaping, with single-car garages on either side of the circle drive.
A pair of dark wood doors opens into a shallow foyer that connects the wings of the 4-bedroom, 3.5-bath, 4,100-square-foot house and opens onto the pool area. The Apreas raised the ceiling height throughout the house, but they took things a bit further in the receiving room with a vaulted, shiplap ceiling.
“The house was designed for entertaining,” says Victor, noting the north wing includes a hybrid space. “It’s not too formal to be that much of a living room, but it’s more than a den.”
Seating is arranged around a wall unit with a built-in bench that doubles as seating and storage. You can turn the swivel chairs toward the piano at the opposite end of the room for impromptu recitals.
Heading further into the northern wing, a gallery lined with bookshelves and closets separates three guest bedrooms from the more active areas of the house. One of the two bedrooms also has an office that opens onto the garden and pool.
Stringer notes that the Apreas added the office, creating a versatile space that could serve as a playroom, an additional bedroom, a fitness room or an art studio.
The final bedroom in the west wing is a second primary suite with an en-suite bathroom.
The spacious bedroom opens onto the garden and has plenty of room for guests settling in for an extended stay.
The Apreas designed the home so that they could live independently from their guests in the southern wing, with the kitchen, laundry room, dining room and a powder room near the owner’s suite.
In the kitchen, they used a piece of marble that reminded Victor of the “ebb and flow of the ocean,” and that blends with the gray and white color scheme and stainless-steel appliances, including two ovens, two dishwashers, a microwave and an induction cooktop.
They added a banquette with a view of the pool for casual dining.
A small hallway separates the owner’s suite and the kitchen, something the Apreas did as much for the wall space as for the sense of separation, says Victor. “We love an open floorplan, but not too open. We love art, and we needed the walls.”
In the owner’s suite, the Apreas created a sanctuary for themselves with their bed facing doors overlooking the pool. There is a walk-in closet and a sitting room that opens onto a private patio with an outdoor shower. The luxurious bathroom has a soaking tub, shower, water closet, dual sinks and vanity.
For outside entertaining, the Apreas extended an existing covered area so they could dine al fresco and added a heated, saltwater pool with a sun shelf inside a screened enclosure surrounded by a lavish display of color selected by Victor as part of his budding Potted Garden Design business.
“The garden design was very important. A lot of my design principles come from my graphic design experience where I mixed texture, color, scale and the balance of the elements. I have all these little garden areas and great little vignettes,” he continues, pointing out tiles with faux turf grout.
“It’s not just a house; it’s a house in a phenomenal environment,” notes Stringer.
Indian Trails is an gated, 80-acre, ocean-to-river community with boat docks, an oceanside clubhouse, a neighborhood clubhouse, tennis courts with a tennis pro, a playground, a community pool and exercise room. The seclusion of the neighborhood belies its proximity to nearby shopping, dining and environmental treasures just a short drive away, including Vero’s famous Village by the Sea with all its fine restaurants, boutiques, resorts and beaches.
Photos provided
