Solon home has custom-built charm

SOLON - Atop a hill on 23 acres in Solon sits Mike and Angie Bails' custom home - a 7000 square foot beauty built by Advantage Custom Builders.

The Bails designed the home themselves, modeling it after the 4,000 square foot custom build they had in North Liberty before this one.

Both are in the real estate business - Mike as a real estate agent and member owner with Urban Acres Real Estate and Angie as the owner of Brotherton Investments, a property management company in North Liberty. This is the couple's third home and second custom build.

Having open-enrolled their children in Solon's school district since Kindergarten, they wanted to be closer and 'more a part of Solon,” Angie said. Plus, having grown up in Keokuk, a town of just under 11,000 people, she said Solon 'felt like home.”

'I like how in Solon, every Friday night everybody's at the football game,” she said. 'I like that feeling - the hometown, everybody rallies around the same team kind of feeling. And the people, they're just so great. ... The first week in Solon, we knew this is where we wanted to be.”

Now, not only are they closer to the school district, they're just a short walk across the street to the high school and future middle school.

The Bails purchased the acreage three years ago, but moved in just last year after annexing the land from the county to the city, working with the DNR to approve a bridge across the stream in their front yard and building the six bed, seven bath home.

'We were here every day and had our hands in a lot of the details,” Mike said, but the general contractor with Advantage Custom Builders helped make their vision a reality.

'He was one of our number one picks because of his vision being so close to ours,” Angie said.

Although very similar to their last home, their new home increased in size and changed slightly in layout and details.

'I feel like I put a lot more detail into this house than the last house,” Angie said.

Instead of a traditional office, for example, this time the Bails created a 'drop in office” on the way to their main floor master bedroom, which is separated by a big sliding barn door with firehouse hardware - one of Angie's most beloved features along with the heavy black metal french doors off the front of the house. Recycled barn wood from barns torn down by Angie's father accent the master bedroom's ceiling and an elegant and modern candelabra chandelier with an embedded fan hangs from the beams. A matching chandelier hangs from the living room ceiling as well.

'I love everything old and Mike loves everything new, so there's a lot of old elements brought into this house, or things picked to look old and I love that,” she said. 'I would love a farmhouse or an old house, but we definitely love the functionality of a new house.”

Other stunning design features include a jetted copper tub and matching hammered copper sinks in the master bathroom, shimmering chandeliers throughout the home - including two automatic lights in the master walk-in closet - a brushed-copper bar in the basement with an automatic liquor dispenser that keeps bottles hidden and a secret doorway that leads to the 'kids gym,” where their son and daughter can shoot hoops or practice gymnastics on a balance beam and uneven bars.

In addition to the six bedrooms and seven bathrooms, the home also features living rooms and kitchens on the main and lower level, three fireplaces, two basketball courts - one outside and one in the indoor 'kids gym” - a workout room, sauna, in-ground heated pool and hot tub, outdoor living room complete with a TV and fireplace, a deck with a screened-in porch, a second two-car garage in addition to the three-car garage attached to the house and a 'party room” with it's own bathroom on the second level of the separate garage.

It's a lot of space, but they use all of it.

'Mike and I are all about only having spaces that we'll use,” Angie said. 'We never want to have a space that's just there for looks.”