How do you decorate the largest home in Tennessee for the holidays?
“With restraint,” says Dr. Eric W. Barton, CEO of Vanquish Worldwide and owner of Villa Collina, the Italianate mansion on Lyons View Pike. “I didn’t want to go overboard. The home is beautiful. It speaks for itself. We just wanted to add some decor.”
The trees and other decorations created by Samuel Franklin Floral Design are appropriate to the scale of the house. The hues on the main floor complement each other. The burgundy and metallic used in the more public rooms blend perfectly with the mulberry, cream and gold used in the Riverview Room, an informal family room with four televisions.
Constructed between 1995 and 2000, the 40,250-square-foot home is Tennessee’s largest and the 74th largest home in the country. It has 86 rooms: eight bedrooms, 11 full baths, five half baths, a commercial-grade kitchen, a three-story library, a 2,600-square-foot wine cellar, 11 fireplaces, indoor and outdoor pools, a fitness center, a spa, a sauna, a dance floor, an elevator, a home theater, a six-car garage, a guest suite and quarters for staff. There are also 119 light switches, an important consideration when renovating with energy efficiency as the goal.
Since taking ownership just over a year ago for a purchase price of $6.375 million, Barton has made cosmetic changes and needed repairs.
The interior has been completely repainted, carpets have been replaced, and sun-damaged items have been restored. The exterior was repainted Buena Vista Gold with Valet White trim.
The biggest change — and expense — has been the installation of completely new systems: HVAC, water and lighting.
“We’ve installed new LED lighting throughout,” Barton said. “It was a $110,000 lighting job requiring the purchase of 6,800 light bulbs. The windows have energy film, which blocks 99.9 percent of UV rays. Sun-filtering blinds on the windows at the rear of the home are automatically raised at 8 a.m. and lowered at 4 p.m.”
Thermostats, lights and alarms are fully automated but can be controlled manually as well. An inconspicuous panel near the front door is the system’s control center. Everything can also be controlled by a smartphone.
“The 'Entertain' command (on the panel) turns on every light in the home," Barton said. "Every room has a well-hidden speaker. We can pipe the player piano into every room. We like listening to Sinatra throughout the house. There are 40 phones with an intercom system and a switchboard.” The home’s website has its own server, and the home has commercial Wi-Fi.
“It’s as high tech as it can be,” Barton said. “Pretty soon when I walk in, it’ll say ‘Hi, Eric.' ”
The energy-efficient systems have reduced the costs of maintaining the home dramatically.
“The natural gas bill had been several thousand dollars a month,” Barton said. “Now it’s $300 a month. I’ve heard the total monthly utility bill had been as high as $15,000 some months. Now it’s $2,000 a month for water, gas and sewer.”
Villa Collina is a private home, but its size means that normal household systems don’t work well.
“Everything is commercial grade,” Barton said.
Moving into a 40,250-square-foot house seems an odd way to downsize, but Barton, who moved to Villa Collina from a 15,000-square-foot home in Louisville, insists it’s true.
“I was looking to downsize my life,” he says. “I have seven homes in East Tennessee. My hope was to find that one big property. By 2018, I’d like this house to be my main focus. It’s a good investment.”
Barton has hosted a number of events for nonprofit organizations and plans to do more of that.
“The neighbors were concerned about whether we were going to use (Villa Collina) for commercial purposes,” Barton said. “We are not. We live here, but we want to have events, and we want to honor the work of nonprofits.”
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Upcoming plans include a summer jazz series with three to four performances.
“This home is really meant for that kind of thing,” he says. “There have been over a thousand people in the house since March.”