Florida's Largest Homes Reach Megamansion Size at An Astonishing 50,000 Square Feet

Steven M. Hefner, ASID, IIDA, AIA Allied, owner of DesignWorks Creative Partnership, Ltd. in Delray Beach, FL announces that he is designing four astonishing megamansions ranging in size from 26,000 to 50,000 square feet in size. The homes are located in Delray Beach, Manalapan, Gulfstream, FL and Pittsburgh, PA.

"The homes are being designed for stars in the business and entrepreneurial arenas as well as for actual stars in the entertainment industry," said Steven Hefner, owner of Designworks Creative Partnership in Delray Beach, FL.

"The process is not unlike that in designing homes of more modest proportions, but there are certainly some unusual and additional challenges when working with a home of this size," Hefner acknowledges. "Less about carving out usable and highly functional spaces from a small footprint, and more about creating scale, arrival and grace."

Hefner is a world traveler, often called upon to lend a sense of historic accuracy to a project. The designer specializes in critical enhancements such as historically accurate design and detailing.

He is currently designing a 26,000 square foot Delray Beach mansion for a financially blessed young couple in their mid-thirties. To be used as a permanent year round residence, the home is an Italian Renaissance villa based in theme on the exotic, elegant and lush James Deering Estate, Villa Viscaya in Miami.

As was Viscaya, the house is intended to appear as an Italian estate that has stood for 400 years and had been occupied and renovated by several generations of a family.

The owner of the new house is of an Italian background. Growing up in Spain and Italy, he spent his childhood with a father who was a professor of Ancient History and a translator of Dante from Italian to English.

The historic villa spans the Atlantic Ocean to the Intracoastal, bisected by the winding of AIA serving as a natural path to the entrance. Decorative iron gates stand at the entrance to the Oceanside property. Just within the gates is a two story structure forming a twenty-five (25) foot deep arch sheltering the entrance and serving as an arrival statement. Forming a courtyard entrance to the main house, the structure within is an 8,000 square foot carriage house, an arts and crafts area and secluded playroom for the young children.

The carriage house is detailed with stone columns and fully finished with Italian porcelain tile flooring.Inside, the space is capable of housing nine vehicles. Lit with recessed halogen lights, the display area is suitable for displaying a classic car collection.

The main house is accessed by a twenty-five (25) foot grand staircase, or through an exterior covered loggia set with elaborate stone and marble pebble designs. A three story access tower with a glass bridge connects to the wine cellar and wine tasting room. The main home contains multiple master, childrens, and guest suites, formal living and dining areas, expansive family room, breakfast and kitchen, butlers pantry, linen rooms, lounges, a theatre complete with popcorn bar, amply scaled billiard room, two story library with overlook, outdoor entertainment areas, and lavish garden terraces.

The designer retained an artist in Florence, Italy to paint several murals and ceiling details. A portion of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel will be painted on canvas for the upper level of the library. Steven Hefner also designed a twenty-five (25) foot high two story fireplace for the space, eliminating planned floor sections to create space for the exquisite antique 13th Century altar belonging to the homeowner. Custom hardware forged in South America is in the crafting, as is the dramatically scaled lighting for the project. Also being handcrafted in this region are numerous custom doors, jambs, casings, and vanities, including an 18th century "dilapidated farm house/palace Marie Antoinette styled" vanity for the "Her" master bath. The homeowner often joins Hefner in overseeing the crafting of custom plaster moldings, casework, hardware and millwork items for the home.

Italian Renaissance gardens, accurate in detail, are being designed by Grant Thornbrough, of A. Grant Thornbrough & Associates, landscape design in Delray Beach. Gardens are reminiscent of the great Italian Renaissance gardens of Italy such as Villa d'Este and Villa Lante in Rome.

Conceived as one vast outdoor room, the design of the gardens is serving as an integrating element between the home and guest house structures. Key classical features include formal arrival entrances, splashing fountains, a swimming pool designed as a central water element, formal stone gardens and paths, statuary, and multiple themed gardens.

Thornbrough, chosen to the team because he is an authority on natural and native plantings, is an active participant in the collaborative nature of the project. He is working with Steve Hefner incorporating Old World Renaissance garden features with formal gardens, clipped and shaped hedges, towering Cypress trees, Medjool date palms, natural flowering vines and trees including Alamanda and Bougainvillea, and in selecting and placing sculpture and artwork unified into the gardens is the classical manner.

The second megamansion Steven Hefner is designing is a 30,000 square foot residence located in Manalapan, FL.

Manalapan, Florida is one of the nations wealthiest and most security conscious cities. Actual cameras and computers are set up to run background checks on every car and driver entering, alerting a 911 dispatcher if the car is stolen or the driver is suspected of a crime. Infrared cameras record each cars license tag number, and other cameras photograph the driver.

The Manalapan residence is being designed for a European couple with four children. The client is involved in the restoration of 18th and 19th century historic buildings in Germany and Italy and they maintain a historic villa in Italy which they are restoring.

Shane Ames, also of Delray Beach, FL, the architect for the project, is a frequent collaborator with Mr. Hefner. The home is of a transitional European styling.

The third megamansion that Mr. Hefner is designing is a 50,000 square foot residence for a Fortune 500 executive in the third largest pharmaceutical company in the United States.

Creating a residence for this busy executive and his family, including eight children, requires that Mr. Hefner design and coordinate not only the new home, but a temporary residence as well. With the clients so busy (he is intricately enmeshed in important business transactions, she in managing the daily family life of a family of ten, the youngest child only six months old), the program for the project is developed on the fly, decisions at times being made as the corporate jet lands on the tarmac.

The fourth over thirty thousand square foot megamansion is being designed In Gulfstream, FL (with another 9,000 square foot home in Connecticut) for an active couple with Hollywood connections. The couple produced a Broadway play last year.

He is an entrepreneur and philanthropist, she is an actress playing a lead role in one of the most popular daytime daily dramas, and currently is working on a movie.

Originally designed to be a permanent year round Florida residence, the home is now being designed as a spec home and will be sold, while the couple is working with Mr. Hefner on the design of a weekend home and summer residence in Connecticut. The couple will now reside in New York and live in the city during the week as the children attend school.

The Connecticut home, slated to incorporate some of the furniture selected for the Florida home as well as many important antiques, will reflect the styling of a French Country manor house. The property is a five acre parcel situated off the woods on a country lane, overlooking a lake and backing onto a thirty (30) acre land preserve.

The house has a luxuriously heated swimming pool, billiard room, theatre, staff quarters complete with kitchen, fully stocked library, five bedroom suites, dramatic living room, kitchen, breakfast and morning room and two laundry rooms. An English style glass conservatory is in the planning stage for a masterful addition to the Family Room area.

The Florida megamansion in Gulfstream, FL, originally designed as a custom home for the couple, will now be re-marketed, but will also incorporate Mr. Hefners talent for historically accurate detailing, and attention to quality design for moldings, cabinets, hardware, custom lighting and intricate patterns for floors and ceilings.

Amenities include a double columned exterior Entrance Loggia with stunning Honey Onyx granite flooring, private entry alcove with diamond patterned granite flooring, Entry Gallery with elegant coffered ceilings, custom double entry doors, Master Bedroom suites with 'His and Her walk in closets and separate sitting areas, private sanctuary dual master baths, formal Living Room and Dining Room, Butlers Kitchen and Pantry, dine in Kitchen with private phone booth so as not to disturb, Dual Offices, Theatre, Library, fully equipped Exercise Room, private, high speed elevator whisking residents to the second floor, private on grounds Guest House with Master suite and sitting areas, Panoramic Ocean and Intracoastal views, exterior Entertainment Areas with wet bar, Outdoor Lounge areas, custom hardwood plank flooring, hand milled millwork and ceilings inset with a breathtaking Stained Glass Dome, indoor bar and entertainment areas, sitting Areas and lounges, pool and cabana house, in-house staff quarters and utility areas.

CONTACT: Leslie McKerns, McKerns Development.

561-305-4264. mckerns@bellsouth.net. McKerns Development is the Publicist for DesignWorks Creative Partnership. McKerns Development specializes in strategic marketing, press and media relations for those in the built environment-Developers, Architects, Interior Designers, Builders and Engineers, and the organizations they support.

Steven M. Hefner, ASID, IIDA, AIA Allied, has been a professional interior designer for more than thirty (30) years, and is the founder and owner of Designworks Creative Partnership, Ltd. in Delray Beach, FL., www.designworksltd.com, a firm offering comprehensive design services to a wide range of clients including local, national and international corporations, individuals, institutions and nonprofit organizations. The scope of his work spans national and international clientele in the United States, England, Spain, Germany and Switzerland, and includes luxury single and multi family development, luxury transportation, hospitality, mixed use and retail, medical and senior living environments.

His specialty is in historic accuracy and working with developers, builders and architects from the pre-conceptual and conceptual stages in development of the site, the materials, the historic period, the selection and development of exterior materials and elevations, building materials including stone, paving materials, fountains lighting, landscape, and interior plans, elevations, lighting, ceiling, interior custom millwork and window treatments.



Author Information

Leslie Mckerns
MCKERNS DEVELOPMENT