Champions Luxe - McNeil Company

Champions Luxe

Champions Luxe

Main-Level Remodel · Omaha, Nebraska

The opening moment

The lot is why this project exists. It sits above Champions Run, and on a clear morning the sunrise comes up across the course and straight into the back of the house. They're members of the club. No new address in Omaha was going to improve on that. So the question was never whether to move. It was whether the 1996 house already standing there could become the house they actually wanted.

What they wanted, and what they couldn't yet say

The brief was plain. The house was a set of smaller, compartmentalized rooms — it had served them well, and they said so — but what they wanted now was open, connected, welcoming. Real flow between the kitchen, the dining room and the living space. More daylight. A plan that finally made something of the sunrise and the view they'd stayed for.

They host. Family gatherings run to twelve and are still growing. They cook, they watch sports, they open good wine. So they asked for gathering spaces that each did a different job: a small warm room for conversation and appetizers, a large one for a game, a casual table for eight, and a dining room that seats twelve at a holiday. They asked that the same house work for two people on a Tuesday without feeling oversized. And they asked, quietly, that it be able to hold one of their children's families someday.

The harder version of that list was the part nobody said out loud. If the lot was the reason to stay, the footprint was the reason it would be difficult. None of it could come from adding on.

01 Main Level-Home Remodel · Omaha, Nebraska

Good bones. Too many walls.

Built in 1996 and never short on quality — just short on connection. Smaller rooms, one at a time, each doing its own job behind its own doorway.

Traditional columns defined nearly every space on the main level, and it was unknown which of them were structural or what they supported. The house is two-story, so opening the floor plan meant answering that question wall by wall. The original framing had been done creatively — a lot of odd things supporting other odd things — which made tracing a load back to its source harder than it should have been. The foyer’s circular stair sat very close to the front door. The family room fireplace was masonry and thoroughly traditional. All of it worked. None of it flowed.

The 1996 elevation Before
The 1996 elevation
The circular stair, close to the front door Before
The circular stair, close to the front door
Columns defining the kitchen — structure unknown Before
Columns defining the kitchen — structure unknown
Traditional masonry firebox in the family room Before
Traditional masonry firebox in the family room
Good light, closed off from everything else Before
Good light, closed off from everything else

Champions Luxe

Main-Level Remodel · Omaha, Nebraska

The partnership

Demolition made the real problem visible. Traditional columns defined nearly every room, and nobody could say which of them were holding the house up. It's a two-story, so every wall on the wish list was a bearing-wall question before it was a design question. The original framing had been done creatively — odd things supporting other odd things — which made tracing a load back to its source detective work on site rather than a line on a drawing.

It got solved in the room. Ron, Jeff, and Klassen, the framer, met on site again and again. Their project manager's read on why it worked: constant communication and site meetings, and years of experience between them producing solutions that were actually possible. That's a different standard than solutions that are drawable. We've been building in Omaha since 1977, and most of what that teaches is the difference.

The turn came on a walkthrough. Everyone was still working the columns problem — how to open the space up — when Kris Patton saw the back staircase and stopped to ask a question instead of proposing an answer. How often do you actually use the staircase in the front entry? What would you think if we took it out? Your entry focal doesn't need to be this staircase.

It was the right question for two reasons at once. The circular stair sat close enough to the front door to choke the entry, and it was thoroughly of 1996 — keeping it would have meant tearing it out and rebuilding it modern anyway, to pull off the look the rest of the house was heading toward. That is a large cost for a staircase they walked past more than they walked on. Removing it was the cheaper move and the better one, which is a rarer combination than it sounds.

They said yes, and made the back stair the primary route up. That single yes freed the main level for a bar, a walk-in wine cellar, and a walk-in pantry, none of which existed before, on a footprint that never grew.

The lounge is where they pushed back. That space had been a sitting room, and a sitting room was what they expected to get again. But they already had a lot of sitting rooms — several spaces doing the same job — and adding one more would have repeated the problem in a new location. So the proposal came back as something else: an after-dinner room, a place to take a glass of wine off the bar. They walked through it, and then they understood it.

The craft

It started with a slab. Before the palette, before the cabinetry, before anything else, Kris went looking for the drama that would set the tone — and found it in the stone that became the dining room fireplace. She has called it the art that created the space. Everything after it was chosen to support it: the agate for the family room found second, the counters and backsplashes deliberately quieter so the rooms would not get busy. The slabs came from Midwest Tile, after she had searched every distributor in town.

The dark cabinetry follows the same logic, and answers the obvious objection. The brief asked for bright and open; the kitchen went dark. But the client had lived with dark cabinets before, and the richness of the wood tones is what the house needed — warmth to balance the lighter walls and trim. Take the dark out and the light stops reading as light.

The lighting was found the same way, from one fixture outward. The entry piece came first, at market. The lounge fixtures are the same collection in different shapes, so two connected rooms relate without competing. The dining room was the hardest: nothing else could hang in there, so that one fixture had to carry the whole room on scale alone — big enough not to be missed, restrained enough not to shout.

And two columns couldn't move at all. They were absorbed into the kitchen refrigerator wall and are completely concealed — the wall reads as cabinetry because the loads were routed through it deliberately, not because something got boxed in afterward.

How they live in it now

The first family dinner moved through the whole house. Cocktails and wine to start, poured at the bar. Hors d'oeuvres and conversation in the family room. Dinner gathered around the dining room table. Then the game room, for what the homeowner calls fierce Double Twelve Dominoes competition.

Since then they've hosted forty people for their son's engagement. In the old layout that number felt crowded and half the rooms went unused, cut off from wherever everyone had ended up. This time guests spread out and stayed together at the same time — energetic, in her word, even with people in different spaces.

And the rooms are still rooms. That was the part she noticed first: the house opened up and connected without collapsing into one large space, and each room still does a different job.

The view they stayed for is the thing they mention most. Friends keep remarking on it. As homeowner puts it, the outside now feels like art work in their home.

Close

Their daughter said the new space feels nothing like the house they'd lived in for over twenty years — and then said it still feels like home.

That second half is the harder assignment, and it's the one that never appears on a drawing.

If you're looking at a house you've outgrown on a lot you'd never leave, that's a conversation worth having.

Your entry focal does not need to be this staircase.
Kris Patton, ASID · Interiors Joan and Associates

02 Chapter — Foyer & entry

"How often do you actually use this staircase?"

The circular stair sat close enough to the front door that the entry had nowhere to breathe.

1996
Today
1996 Today
Design team asked it on a walkthrough, after seeing the back staircase. Your entry focal doesn't need to be this staircase. Keeping it would have meant tearing it out and rebuilding it modern anyway to match where the rest of the house was heading — a large cost for a stair they walked past more than they walked on. The owners said yes, and that single yes freed the main level for everything that followed.
The rug is custom, and cut to the same shape as the dropped ceiling above it
The rug is custom, and cut to the same shape as the dropped ceiling above it
You used to walk into a staircase. Now you walk into a room
You used to walk into a staircase. Now you walk into a room
The foyer feature wall - The ceiling is framed in a wood detail and papered in herringbone wood veneer — the same paper that returns on the accent wall below
The foyer feature wall - The ceiling is framed in a wood detail and papered in herringbone wood veneer — the same paper that returns on the accent wall below
You used to walk into a staircase. Now you walk into a room.
You used to walk into a staircase. Now you walk into a room.
I was looking for the drama to start the project, so I could find the supporting textures to carry through the home.
Kris Patton, ASID · Interiors Joan and Associates

03 Chapter — Dining room

The whole house started with this slab.

Before the palette, before the cabinetry, before anything else, the design needed one piece of drama to build everything else against.

Before
After
Before After
Kris Patton found the stone for this fireplace first and calls it the art that created the space. Every material decision in the house was made after it and to support it — the agate in the family room, and counters and backsplashes deliberately quieter so no room got busy. She found the slabs at Midwest Tile, after searching every distributor in town.
The fireplace wall — the first decision made on the entire project
The fireplace wall — the first decision made on the entire project
Nothing else could hang in this room, so one fixture had to carry it on scale alone
Nothing else could hang in this room, so one fixture had to carry it on scale alone
Set for twelve at a holiday
Set for twelve at a holiday
Rendering
Built

04 Chapter — Kitchen

Two columns are still holding this up.

Two of the structural columns could not move, and the kitchen was the only place left to put them.

Before
After
Before After
Both columns were absorbed into the refrigerator wall and are completely concealed in the final layout. The wall reads as cabinetry because the loads were routed through it on purpose — not because something got boxed in after the fact. It is the most counterintuitive decision on the page — the brief asked for brighter and the kitchen got darker — and Kris's reasoning resolves it in one line. Right now the page shows the dark cabinetry three times and never explains it.
Single-level island, for cooking and for leaning on
Single-level island, for cooking and for leaning on
The arch through to the back hall
The arch through to the back hall
The brief said bright. The cabinets went dark — because warm wood is what makes the lighter walls and trim read as light
The brief said bright. The cabinets went dark — because warm wood is what makes the lighter walls and trim read as light
Rendering
Built
"The view has opened up with the update, and the outside now feels like art work in our home."
Homeowner

05 Chapter — Family room

The old firebox is still back there.

The masonry fireplace was traditional, the new design was not, and tearing masonry out of a two-story is a demolition bill with nothing to show for it.

Before
After
Before After
A linear fireplace was set in front of the existing masonry firebox. The original stayed where it was, the room turned transitional, and the budget went into the half of the assembly anyone would ever see.
Where the game goes on
Where the game goes on
The golf course, finally in the room
The golf course, finally in the room
Rendering
Built
They trusted and let us guide them in some concepts they have not had before.
Kris Patton, ASID · Interiors Joan and Associates

06 Chapter — Lounge, bar & wine cellar

They wanted rooms, not one big space.

Several rooms in the house were already doing the same job, and this space had been one of them.

Before
After
Before After
What came back instead of another sitting room was an after-dinner room — somewhere to take a glass of wine off the bar. The owners walked through the idea before they agreed to it. None of the three rooms in this chapter existed before, and the house never got any bigger. That is what removing the front stair bought.
The bar the lounge exists to sit beside
The bar the lounge exists to sit beside
The cellar — the client wanted it functional and an art piece, and would not settle for one or the other
The cellar — the client wanted it functional and an art piece, and would not settle for one or the other
Backlit panels at the back — size-restricted, and the reason the detail took months
Backlit panels at the back — size-restricted, and the reason the detail took months
the lounge lighting fixtures are the same collection as the entry piece in different shapes, chosen so two connected rooms relate without competing.
the lounge lighting fixtures are the same collection as the entry piece in different shapes, chosen so two connected rooms relate without competing.

07 What changed

The project, in numbers.

Measure 1996 Today
Finished area Main Level 1996 2,280 SF Today 2,280 SF
Time the owners lived offsite 1996 Today 15 Months
Square footage added 1996 None Today None
Walk-in wine cellar 1996 None Today Walk-in, glass-fronted
Walk-in pantry 1996 None Today Yes
Main-level bar 1996 None Today Yes
Front stair 1996 Circular, at the front door Today Removed
Primary route upstairs 1996 Front circular stair Today Family Room stair
Columns in main living 1996 Several, structure unknown Today Two, concealed in the kitchen wall
Family room fireplace 1996 Traditional masonry Today Linear, in front of the original firebox
Retained from the original 1996 The masonry firebox, two structural columns, and the entire exterior footprint. Today

Every new room on this list came out of the existing footprint. Nothing was added on.

Have a house worth keeping?

Most remodels start the way this one did — with a lot, a view, or a street that no new address is going to beat. If that's where you are, the first useful conversation isn't about finishes. It's about what the house you already own can become, and what it will take to get there.

*Start a conversation*
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