Ohio home listed for $20 million includes car barn, heated driveway and yacht-like touches

A 20,700-square-foot Ohio home with echoes of a yacht's interior has hit the market for $20 million, in what may be the state's most expensive home listing ever.

Completed in 2018 in Hunting Valley, east of Cleveland, the home features a boatload of amenities including an interior fashioned by Ari Loar, a Florida home and yacht interior designer. The home's giant porthole windows in the sunroom, sweeping wooden ceilings and curved wood trim hint at Loar's yacht designs.

The home's amenities include a "car-barn" that can house up to 20 vehicles; 13 bathrooms; a heated driveway; an elevator; heated main and lower-level floors; a movie theater; an entertainment stage; a golf simulator; a custom "swim spa;" a greenhouse; a wine cellar; a bocce ball court; and his-and-her bathrooms in the main bedroom.

"It's a large home by any stretch of the imagination but it doesn't feel like a museum," said Jen Waters, who is listing the home for $19.995 million with Keller Williams Greater Metropolitan in Beachwood, Ohio. "It feels like a home, a really large well-laid-out home. You feel a real sense of warmth there."

Waters said the home is "the most expensive home to hit the market in the state that we can find."

In 2011, industrialist Donald Brown and his wife, Shirley, listed their home between Vermilion and Huron, on the shore of Lake Erie, for $19.5 million, although the unconventional concrete pod home ended up selling for less than $4 million.

The Hunting Valley listing was designed in a "shingle" style by Northeast Ohio architect Charles Fazio for Joseph and Kimberly Wesley. Joseph Wesley, a commercial electrical contractor who founded the construction staffing firm Tradesmen International, passed away in 2021.

"Joe and Kim wanted a place where the family could gather and entertain, embracing the traditional elements of using wood and marble, but also applying those elements in a more transitional way," said Loar via email.

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"They wanted their home to be unlike any others," Loar added. "Joe wanted us to create drama in order to make statements in each room and gave us 'Carte Blanche' to be able to execute."

Loar said she and Kimberly Wesley traveled to Milan "to select furniture and lighting for the home that we couldn't find in the U.S. at the time."

In Milan, Loar introduced Wesley to Sicis, an Italian mosaic tile company that designed tile work inside the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The connection resulted in custom murals featuring tens of thousands of small tiles in the dining room and lower-level bar.

"We selected a "Peacock mosaic mural" for the dining room that had bright colors such as green, gold, red, turquoise, copper," Loar said.

In addition to the dining room, the first floor includes a great room, kitchen, full pantry, living room, and a primary suite with his-and-her bathrooms and closets and private patio with fireplace. A set of curved stairs and an elevator lead to a lower-level gym.

Upstairs are five bedrooms, each with its own bath, and a movie room.

The lower level features a bar, dining room, rec room and entertainment room with a stage.

A breezeway connects the main floor of the home to the car barn. Above the garage is a "man cave" with a full-size golf simulator, a bar, a bathroom with a barber's chair, and rooms now used as an office and music room, said Waters.

Set on 61 acres off Chagrin River Road, the property backs up to the Chagrin River and feaures trails through acres of woods that include an eagle's nest, said Waters. A small pond sits next to the house.

"Beyond the home is a horse farm," she said. "It's just stunning, really peaceful."

The listing dwarfs what is thought to be the highest-priced listing in central Ohio, from business executive Tami Longaberger, who listed her Muskingum County estate for $15 million in 2011. Longaberger sold the home two years later for $6 million, another reminder that listing prices can be very different than sales prices.

The most expensive home listed now in central Ohio is a Delaware estate asking $6.95 million, down from the original price of $7.9 million a year ago.

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio home listed for $20 million includes car barn, heated driveway and yacht-like touches