Standing on the second story master bedroom balcony gazing down the steep hill to the meandering river below, it is hard to believe you are in Goochland, Virginia. “You feel like you are on top of a mountain in Europe,” says the homeowner about the four-story 14,690 square foot home that blends a Tuscan Villa exterior with an interior influenced by French Country and southwestern with hints of an Asian aesthetic.

As world travelers with their business, the owners fell in love with the Mediterranean and French Country styles and wanted to incorporate them into their new home. “We did a major binder that had hundreds of pictures we had clipped through the years with different ideas and different colors and designs so we kind of had a visual already,” she says.

The homeowners chose Chris McCray of Chris McCray Designs to design the house. They said he, “had a deep understanding of what we were looking for and we really trusted him to make a lot of the decisions for us.”

Being out of town a lot for business McCray served as the homeowner’s representative through a majority of the work. “One of the biggest highlights was I had that freedom and support from the client to run with their initial vision,” says McCray. “They let go and let me guide the ship.”

The uniqueness of this home begins with its Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) construction. Stacked Styrofoam blocks were filled with concrete and metal rods creating a super energy efficient, sound resistant structure. “The framing of it was probably the biggest challenge. Not only was it very complex but the ICF construction made it even more challenging. It took us nearly a year just to frame it,” said builder Jim Dunkum of Dunkum, Inc. who had a two-scale model made of the 24 room house that he says helped them to make changes in the design before the house was built.

McCray’s Tuscan exterior really sets this house apart. The sand colored stucco is accented with stone and a terracotta-colored tile roof. The massive double front doors made of pineapple wood are stained and distressed to look like old mahogany with inlaid metal detailing that includes the Chinese character for “home”. The main house has a full basement and three stores above ground. A breezeway on one side attaches the garage to the house with a guest/in-law suite above it.

The house was designed to have a “flow” from floor to floor and easy transitions from outdoors to indoors. Inside you can stand in the 425 square foot two-story foyer and see up to the second story hallway above to a wrought iron and maple spiral staircase that leads to the third floor. The 1045 square foot great room with 13 foot ceilings, a 700 gallon salt water fish tank, large ornate stone mantle and a Chinese separating screen has mostly glass doors and windows across the back of the house so you can see straight through to the patio and backyard. The master bedroom has a balcony separated by a double fireplace. A second story guest room opens on to a uniquely designed teakwood balcony and has a glass block shower on the outside wall to let in the sun.

One of McCray’s favorite creations on the first floor is the chandelier in the dining room. “It was difficult to find something to fit the size of the room so we came up with the concept to suspend fabric-covered drum shades like a mobile sculpture piece,” he says. The chandelier hangs from a 13 foot ceiling in front of an enormous window and is a focal point from the outside when it is lit at night. The dining room also features a wrought iron spiral staircase identical to the one on the second floor.

The kitchen is the epitome of French Country charm with handmade custom cabinetry, wood columns and ceiling beams, stone floors, an eating bar and a huge chopping block island with turned legs. “We also used some handmade terracotta tiles on the back splash.” says McCray. The adjacent kitchen sitting area is what the homeowner calls “the heart of the house” with a beautiful double sided stone fireplace.

Though the children’s rooms on the second floor appear to be nothing out of the ordinary, the design hides something very unique. “The kids are very close so the mom asked me to connect the two spaces,” says McCray who used space in the eves and ceilings to create a secret passageway, two loft areas and a connecting room. An undulating floor with funky halogen lights connects the spaces.

To get to theses spaces from the bedrooms McCray designed a concept called “ship’s ladders”. “It is alternating stair treads and it allows you to get a staircase in to a shorter distance. They are such a prominent feature I created a nook/shelf for personal objects on the stairs that tucks back into the risers,” he says.

In one child’s loft a hinged bookcase is the entrance to the secret passageway. In the other a hinged faux oil painting of a full sized Chinese warrior with a flip door behind the eyes is the entrance. “It’s so you can look through it like one of those paintings in Scoobie Doo,” McCray says.

Drawing on a trip to Provence, the master bathroom features a very unique slate. “We were working in Provence and staying in a hotel that had been converted from an old church and they had all this rough slate so we both loved it and wanted to do it when we built our house,” says the homeowner. The bathroom also features columns, a barrel ceiling, a tub by the window overlooking the river, a very large walk-in closet and a multi-head shower stall.

McCray used a southwestern influence for the third floor loft. “We did a high wainscot with old barn board and distressed it and did a faux finish to make it feel country,” he says. The homeowner says the room captures the feeling of a lodge.

The rest of the house has numerous special features. There are a total of five fireplaces, a planting room, a Zen bathing room and an elevator. The house uses a geothermal heating and air conditioning system. The basement includes a wine cellar, playroom, a laundry room and an exercise room. A downstairs cylinder-shaped powder room has mosaic tile flooring and stained glass windows in turret openings. The concrete work around the outdoor pool features a multicolored compass pattern.

“There was nothing in this house that I had not done before, but I had never done so many of these custom details and structural things all at once in one project,” says Dunkum. “So just the magnitude of all of those things at once was probably the most challenging part of this job.”

“I think that the thing about this house is that on the outside you do not quite understand how enormous it is inside,” says McCray. “But when you walk around inside it has a good human scale to it and you do not feel overwhelmed.”