NATURE MEETS CONTEMPORARY

A secluded home overlooking the Wissahickon marries the property’s natural elements with an extensive art collection.

When Karen Cole first saw the contemporary home on four acres in Lower Gwynedd, she was smitten. She and her husband, Bob, had spent 40 years in a two-story Colonial in Harleysville, and she wanted something more modern. She just had to convince Bob.

“I was happy where we were,” recalled Bob. “Nobody had lived in the [Lower Gwynedd] house for 2½ years, and everything was overgrown and plantings had been ripped up by deer — but it was a beautiful lot in a beautiful location.”

That location was at the end of a private road, surrounded by the Wissahickon watershed. The inside needed a lot of work to update the ’90s decor featuring pink marble floors. They hired Ernst Brothers + Builders, based in Spring House, and spent the next year renovating. The near-gut job included tearing out walls, installing wood floors, replacing windows, and creating an art studio for Karen and a workshop for Bob.

Now, the large home — it’s about 4,800 square feet — boasts 12- to 25-foot ceilings, three bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms, a dedicated entertainment room, and the new studio and workshop spaces. The mostly white, black, and beige decor allows the couple’s extensive art collection to take center stage. Karen painted many of the home’s pictures while other works are by artists she supports.

“Living with beautiful objects that pay tribute to the natural world reminds us to slow down and reconnect to the world around us,” Karen said.

Bob has always enjoyed tinkering, previously building two kayaks in the basement of his last home. Now, in his dedicated workshop, he has plenty of room for creative projects, including the live-edge table in the foyer.

Owners of World Wide Stereo, the Coles outfitted the home with the latest technology. The fully automated smart home features a state-of-the-art sound system, lighting that changes with the circadian rhythm of the day, shades that raise and lower based on the sunlight coming into the house, and a heating system that uses artificial intelligence.

With the help of Bluebell Kitchens, Bob, whom Karen calls “king of the kitchen,” outfitted the kitchen with Wolf appliances and a Sub-Zero refrigerator. He makes his own pasta, has a wok burner on the stove, and a wood-burning oven outside the kitchen door to make pizzas from scratch. His favorite appliance is the convection steam oven.

“It’s changed my life,” he said. “You can take a piece of a dried-out rotisserie bird that has no flavor and you put it in there on a refresh mode and it comes out like it was just cooked.”

The kitchen countertops and backsplash are white quartzite, which complements the white custom, handmade wooden hood over the stove. The kitchen has its own sound system featuring a signature McIntosh amplifier. A subwoofer hidden in the crawl space is attached to under-cabinet ports for a high-quality sound experience.

Warm and inviting Oriental rugs cover the wooden floors in several rooms, adding splashes of color. The couple said they especially appreciated the workmanship of the craftsmen from Ernst Brothers + Builders, who spared no detail, including painstakingly cutting and hanging each door by hand.

Floor-to-ceiling windows surround the house, bringing in sunlight throughout the day. It can get so bright in some rooms that the couple needed to install shades to stop the sun from fading the carpets and furniture and overheating the house.

The Coles also focused on the landscaping, removing dead trees and adding plantings. They opted for a meadow look, concentrating on pollinating plants and flowers. Bob built a beehive, which houses as many as 50,000 bees during the summer, and has given them lots of honey. The hive sits behind a wall near the courtyard.

“I bought a queen that was known for being docile,” said Bob. “It’s a huge way to give back because bees are dying.”

The bees don’t scare off their family who enjoy coming to celebrate Easter and Thanksgiving holidays.

“We fell in love back in the early ’70s taking long walks along the Wissahickon Creek,” said Karen. “We fell in love with this house first, because it had so many large windows to the world where we could feel that the natural world was part of our home, inside and out. When we saw that our property backed up to the Wissahickon Creek and trail, that closed the deal.”

Is your house a Haven? Nominate your home by email (and send a few digital photographs) at properties@inquirer.com.