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St. Louis Homes & Lifestyles Magazine

Volume IV, No. 7

Oh, Heavenly Days

Story By Susan Fadem

Should the gods ever tire of their celestial play-grounds, they could do worse than to visit the Mediterranean-style manse of Pat and Denny Frye if improbably, in Wildwood, Missouri, the tri-floor turreted home has a generous 10,200 square feet of amply marbled living space. To say nothing of its 67 arched doorways and windows. Thirty-four column. Gold gilding. Fountains. And enough potted greenery, urns and statuary to accessorize an Italian or Grecian plaza.

Diversions also abound. Among them: a three-tiered cobalt-blue tiled swimming pool and hot tub, bounded in part by a circular stairway, plant-topped columns and a built-in water slide; a three-hole putting green ("I don't play golf,” Denny admits. "But everybody says if you have a house like this, you build a green"); and individual rooms for billiards, excise, poker, chess and a cushy theater-quality entertainment center with a mere 96-inch screen and nine speakers.

If, during their stay the gods should lust or long for their own kind, compatriots await. A statue of Triton -- sea god Poseidon's son in Greek mythology, represented with a man's head and torso, fish tail and conch-shell trumpet -- perches atop a fountain in the Fryes' imposing, circular front driveway. Another Triton reigns near the poolhouse. Elsewhere in the balconied home: several fleet-footed Mercurys, the Roman messenger whose spheres of influence include commerce.

How appropriate. Denny, a trained engineer, is president of a Fenton-based company that uses laymen's terms during technical seminars on a complex manufacturing process, offered worldwide to non-techies. Since he founded the business neatly 20 years ago, his company's bookings have rocketed hundredfold, from four seminars in 1980 to a projected 400 this year.

Such success is made all the sweeter, the Fryes concur, by their humble beginnings. One of seven siblings, Denny grew up in what he describes as "kind of a lower middleclass neighborhood about two blocks from Churchill Downs" in Louisville, Kentucky. The boys all slept upstairs, the girls downstairs in one bed. Total number of bathrooms: one. Pat came from a household of 11 in Wooster, Ohio. The family made do with 1.5. bathrooms.

Before moving to Wildwood, the Fryes lived in a small house in Cedar Hill Missouri, where they raised their daughter, Tina, now 27 and married to St. Louisan Scott Silk. The Fryes' current home, which has so many rooms Denny confesses he hasn't walked into some of them in a year, has six bedrooms (including one for their 6-year-old son, Cory), six full baths and three half baths. "To wake up in this house I don't believe it "Pat says, awestruck.

This dream house, two years in the building was a lifetime in the making. From books and magazines absorbed and travels enjoyed during nearly 30 years of marriage -- Denny and Pat wed two months after they met -- the Fryes had concluded they wanted:

A phenomenal view.
A Mediterranean-style house with lots of natural textures, not a lot of color, black accents and interesting textures and shapes.
A pool.

Several years ago, after nixing a one-acre lot in Town & Country with a $150,000 price tag, the couple spent $88,000 for six forested acres overlooking the Meramec Valley in Wildwood; later buys doubled their Wildwood acreage.On a clear day, they can now see the Riverfront Arch from their backyard.

Long charmed by the geometry and serenity of Mediterranean design, Denny and Pat managed to track down Scottsdale, Arizona, architect John B. Scholz, a proponent of the style, although in the basement-less form preferred by many of his clients. After Scholz sold the Fryes a published catalog of his plans, from which they selected their house-to-be's design, they hired St. Louis architect HwaiYang. His task: modify a duplication of their first-floor plan for the lower level.

During a racquetball tournament Denny entered in Houston, he spotted a newspaper feature on an outrageously elegant residential swimming pool. Swiftly, he contacted the homeowner and bought the plans. Mostly during Denny's business trips to Arizona, Florida, California and Texas, the Fryes spent countless hours touring "more display homes than any person on the planet,” Pat laughs.

On these fact-finding missions she always brought her camera, snapping away at all things even remotely noteworthy, from driveways to banisters. Moreover, Pat, who had been functioning as the couple's bid-soliciting contractor, sought a local builder. Though not just anyone would be eager to follow out-of-state plans for a steel-free, concrete shingle-roofed Mediterranean villa with a stucco-like exterior that the Fryes intended to survive Missouri's temperature extremes, Pat found Larry Martin. Not surprisingly, she spied him on a job, building a turreted mansion in Frontenac.

To Larry, now owner of The Martin Group custom home building, she turned over her mounds of snapshots and bids. As the interior designer, he recommended Jennifer Major of Major Designs Inc. Despite skepticism by some workmen over the job's often unorthodox requirements, Larry says, "I was really excited." So was Jennifer. President-elect of the St. Louis chapter of ASID (American Society of Interior Designers), she notes: Along with her associate, Lynn Eastin, "We got to see this one unfold from the beginning. We picked the color for the exterior of house, the floor tiles, the interior specifications..."

Since the architecture dictated the style, Jennifer advised a neutral interior palette, punctuated by such accents as black granite kitchen countertops and much gold leafing, some of it 22 karat. She also led furniture-buying expeditions and incorporated statuary and a portion of the artwork Pat and Denny already owned. Though Denny routinely travels -- and shops -- during business trips to some of the world's loveliest cities, including treasure-filled Florence, Italy, it's home that’s "a pleasure" he says. "It's like a resort."

John B. Scholz, Architect is located at 4300 N. Miller Road, Suite 234, Scottsdale, AZ 85251. The telephone number is 480-874-2733.

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