Iowa craftsmen, artisans help Dunns realize their dream

CEDAR RAPIDS — Greg Dunn was ready to see the sun after spending his life living in the woods shading Cedar Rapids neighborhoods.

So when the kids were off to college, he and his wife, Wendy, plotted a course that would bring them to a bare hilltop along Abbotsford Road, on the city's far east side. They have since planted more than 100 trees, but they don't block the view of serene sunrises and sunsets.

'I wanted to see the sky,' Greg said.

That seems appropriate for a man who has scaled Mount Kilimanjaro in eastern Africa and twice trekked to base camp at Mount Everest.

But taking a dream from idea to reality was a very different kind of mountain to climb — one that would take seven and a half years to crest.

The couple's 7,800 square-foot masterpiece of Iowa craftsmanship took about a year and a half to build, from August 2006 to December 2007, but they bought the 5.5-acre tract five years before construction began.

They had enjoyed building their previous two-story home near Washington High School, but were ready for main-floor living in a home that would not only accommodate their love for entertaining, but would be handicapped accessible, with wide doorways and hallways, making it easier for their aging parents to visit.

The Dunns were just waiting to find the right spot, and let the design grow from there.

The majestic neighborhood had what they were looking for. Nestled off a paved road, each lot has some land around it, and the Dunns were home. In theory.

Dream Team

'The thing we did next, is we figured out that we weren't smart enough to build our house by ourselves, so we needed to find some really talented people who could partner with us to get our ideas to come together,' said Wendy, 65, who teaches psychology at Coe College. Greg, 64, works in corporate insurance with Benefit Solutions.

'That was really the wonderful part of the project — we worked with some of the most talented, creative people who listened well, but then brought their own level of creativity and expertise to the project. They worked so well together,' Wendy said.

Their dream team included:

l Architect Chuck Bruggeman from Bruggeman Design Group in Cedar Rapids. 'He's just so wonderful to work with. He's so creative and so flexible,' Wendy said. 'He designed the home to fit on the lot,' Greg added.

l Interior designer Larry Roberts of Cedar Rapids. 'He has just an incredible sense of space and color,' Wendy said. The wall interior palette ranges from bold to subtle neutrals, with dark charcoal perfectly offsetting the bright reds in the pool table and accessories in the basement game room, to a rich matte green in the library and a soothing creamy yellow in the master bedroom.

The terra cotta wallpaper in the first-floor family room and the brown textured paper in the stairway leading to the basement were harder sales for Wendy. She resisted both 'for months,' but eventually relented and fell in love with them. 'There are just so many people who see things better and differently,' she said.

l Builder Wayne Rasmussen of Marion. 'He did a wonderful job building the home,' Greg said. 'Great problem-solver,' Wendy added. '(He) could make pretty much anything work.'

'The key was they all integrated so well with other,' Greg said, 'that the right hand knew what the left hand was doing, so the end product was a composite of all of it — it wasn't just individuals.'

The couple especially enjoyed watching them all work together to figure out the seven-piece custom crown molding for the family room. With tall ceilings and a huge wooden facade for the gas fireplace, the Dunns knew the molding would have to be deep and complicated to make a visual impact in the overall American traditional design.

'Wayne provided some pieces of wood, and Larry and Chuck rearranged these pieces, and the three of them built this model that was perfect,' Wendy said. 'It was just such a nice partnership.'

'You need different people putting the puzzle together,' Greg added.

'And man, were there a lot of pieces in this puzzle,' Wendy said with a laugh.

Wish list

'We were just looking for a peaceful, beautiful to our eye, place to be,' Wendy said.

The couple love to entertain, so they needed an open, fluid floor plan with large openings that would allow guests to move freely between the kitchen, family room, dining room and library.

They also wanted a spacious kitchen, and added a large granite-topped island to accommodate dinners and events, like recent gatherings for the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art and Orchestra Iowa, each of which drew about 70 people.

Even though they said they had a generous building budget, they also knew where they could make painless adjustments, like using knotty cherry for the kitchen cupboards built by Custom Cabinets in Marion. 'I wanted the design — I didn't care about the wood,' Wendy said, 'so that was a way to make that compromise. ...

And I like the knots.' The company also did all the cabinets in the library and bathrooms.

The master bath is a work of art in and of itself, with a huge multi-head stand-alone shower, two vanities on opposite sides of the room, an oversize sunken bathtub and walk-in closets.

Overall, the house has four bedrooms and five bathrooms, including a mainfloor powder room. The guest rooms in the basement beckon their children and grandchild, offering plenty of space for everyone.

Along with the practical aspects, the house also was designed to showcase all the treasures the couple have collected — from family mementos and items that mean something to them but have no real value to anyone else, to pieces that are just lovely to behold, like paintings by Iowa artists, 200-year-old chandeliers in the dining room and the refurbished 1901 Steinway grand piano in one corner of the family room.

Iowa craftsmanship also extends from furniture made in the Amanas to Stone City limestone exterior blocks and handturned railings for the balconies overlooking the idyllic backyard. It's full of lush greeneries, flowers, majestic weeping willows and other trees creating an oasis around the pond that sports a dock and fountain, nestled in the valley. Soaring windows, balconies and a large screened-in porch afford sweeping views of the grounds.

The gardens are Wendy's domain, and while she isn't a certified Master Gardener, she said she is a master of gardening things deer won't eat.

Movie debut

The house is ready for its close-up, and will make its debut as a movie set for 'Amelia 2.0,' hitting theaters in Cedar Rapids and Los Angeles on Aug. 4.

Filmed locally in the fall of 2014 under the working title of 'The Summerland Project,' the Dunns' home came to the rescue when a conference room at Coe College was no longer available for a scheduled filming date. A colleague called Wendy and asked if they could use her home's library to serve as the senator's office.

'It was really fun,' Wendy said. 'Little did I know there would be 40 people here — eating in the garage, doing hair and makeup in the bedroom. They had rails set in the dining room so they could zoom in and zoom out with the big camera. We had sound, and they filmed part of it outside.

'At the very end, they filmed one of the actresses jumping into the pond off the dock and the pond must have been about 34 degrees. It was just freezing cold and that was the last shooting they were doing for the film, so they had the 'martini shot' out there.'

She didn't know what that was, but it's apparently a tradition, with the director leading everyone in drinking a martini. She figured he didn't know how cold the water was when he took the plunge, too.

'I think he thought he was going to die,' she said with a laugh. 'We let him come in and shower and get warmed up.'

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