One of the biggest indoor home design trends is officially “uncorked” in the Susquehanna Valley: Home wine cellars are adding value, beauty, and storage for wine collectors’ prized possessions. Outdoors, the trend is to turn backyards into beautiful, relaxing retreats complete with water features. Whether your idea of luxury includes wine or water, enjoy exploring dreamy, over-the-top options with local designers—who also provide down-to-earth, budget-friendly ways to incorporate these trends into your own home.
Photo provided by Cable Wine Systems, Inc.
Today’s Wine Cellars: Rarely Located in the Cellar
With 37 years of design experience, Sandra L. Steiner-Houck, president and senior designer of Mount Joy’s Steiner-Houck & Associates (steinerhouck.com), has seen many trends come and go. But one that she says is “absolutely growing” is the integration of wine cellars into homes.
She says there are two driving forces. “Clients travel and have busy lifestyles; when they are home, they like to enjoy luxurious amenities and entertain,” says Steiner-Houck. Additionally, she says the growth in the wine industry and wine tourism is prompting more and more people to become wine collectors.
But the traditional wine cellars of yesteryear are going mainstream and moving up to the main level of most homes, she says. This allows for easier accessibility, plus the chance to showcase the collection in a beautifully designed and dedicated space.
Steiner-Houck recently designed a wine cellar for a Lancaster County couple who was retiring. Steiner-Houck says the project surprisingly came about as almost an afterthought, following a redesign of the couple’s entire main living area.
They asked her about purchasing two tall wine refrigerators—at $20,000—to make use of a walk-in pantry, but she suggested the money would be better spent by investing in a dedicated wine cellar complete with custom cooling and storage.
“We created the design to be a beautiful backdrop to their living area,” she explains. “We put a glass door on the front, providing visibility into the space; vapor barriers on the walls; a cooling area in a remote location (underneath the space in the basement; a granite countertop; stone floors; Venetian plaster on the walls and ceiling; and custom wine racking with integrated lighting to highlight the wine. The light fixture is an outdoor lantern-style hanging fixture; outdoor lighting was a good choice because it could accommodate the dampness in the space.”
Steiner-Houck says wine cellar design is very exciting because it echoes design elements in the home, whether traditional or modern. While traditional wine racking systems are wooden, modern wine cellars rely on steel cable rack systems for an industrial or sleek appearance. Some even give the illusion that wine bottles are “floating.”
“They are all so different, but the smallest ones have 800-1,000 bottles of wine in a space that could be 8-x-10 feet,” she says. “They can also be very large to incorporate thousands of bottles of wine, driven by the client’s need and how much they are collecting. Every one we design is unique.”
Technology also plays a key role. The ideal temperature for wine storage is a constant 55 degrees. She works with a company that custom-designs and engineers cooling systems specific to each space’s cubic feet.
If you’re dreaming about creating your own wine cellar, Steiner-Houck says the two most important pieces of advice are to keep your mind open regarding location, because wine cellars can often be implemented into unexpected places, and to consider how much wine you plan to collect and store because that will determine how much space to allot.
The “average” home wine cellar—if there is such a thing—typically costs slightly more than $20,000.
“But you can certainly create a beautiful wine cellar in more modest way in an average sized home,” says Steiner-Houck. “There are ways of creating beautiful, small and elegant wine cellars without breaking the bank.”
Affordable Luxury: How to Create Your Own Wine Cellar On a Budget
Not sure you have the space or budget for a wine cellar, but still intrigued about the possibility? Steiner-Houck says if you have just 18 inches along the back wall of your dining room, it could be the perfect place to creatively implement a wine cellar.
“Taking a shallow 18 inches off the back wall, putting in racking that’s sleek and modern—but could also be traditional—and adding a glass front to the whole wall creates a beautiful backdrop in dining rooms and entertaining areas. You don’t need a whole room.” She says the cooling unit can be strategically placed underneath the space in a basement. Voila!
1 of 3
Photo provided by CE Pontz
2 of 3
Photo provided by CE Pontz
3 of 3
Photo provided by CE Pontz
Outdoor Living: Water is at the Heart of Every Oasis
“Outdoor spaces are basically all we do anymore—it’s an extremely popular trend,” says Bobby Kenyon, who holds the title of creative solutions guru at Lancaster’s C.E. Pontz Sons (cepontzsons.com). “And the sound of water in your backyard can transform your outdoor space.”
Kenyon says homeowners are investing in their properties by creating outdoor living spaces designed for family-oriented gatherings and entertaining. “Anything you can put inside your home, you can now put outside,” he says. That list includes outdoor kitchens, grills, wood-burning pizza ovens, smokers, fire pits, and fireplaces complete with chimneys.
“It’s very rare that we just do a patio—there’s usually a kitchen or fire pit or water feature that we do with it,” says Kenyon.
One recent project is the ultimate, over-the-top oasis: “There is a huge pool, a massive porcelain patio, a firepit area, a huge pond with massive waterfall, a natural stone patio on one side with natural stone stairs, and a massive pool house. A zero-edge waterfall flows off onto a basin on the side of the pool; there are propane fire urns around the pool, a hot tub, natural stone walkways with landscape lighting—it’s got pretty much everything,” he says.
Another project the C.E. Pontz team completed this past spring is one of Kenyon’s favorite backyards they’ve ever designed because of one critical ingredient. “Travertine is a natural stone that is absolutely beautiful,” he says. “The project has a huge travertine patio with three levels, landscaping and landscape lighting, outdoor audio, and a 15-foot pondless waterfall,” he describes.
Prior to the project, Kenyon says the homeowner simply had an old deck and a grassy yard. It was like working with a blank canvas to create an area where the Lancaster resident could entertain.
Technology aids in outdoor designs like never before. Kenyon says C.E. Pontz Sons uses a computer-aided design (CAD) software program that renders design ideas into 3D. “Everyone who sees it is blown away…to the point where you have the ability to show the homeowner what the design would look like at night with landscape lighting or during the day—it’s insane.”
Additionally, technology provides state-of-the-art outdoor audio and television, plus systems that run off Wi-Fi. Homeowners can even control those systems—adjusting the tone of the lighting, increasing or decreasing the flow of water features—through a touch of a button on their phone while they’re relaxing on the patio.
Kenyon says a “typical” dream patio, about the size of the travertine one, is about 1,000 square feet; the average cost for a dream patio begins in the $30- to $40,000 range.
His advice to homeowners dreaming of their own slice of heaven beyond their back door? He says the public is always welcome to walk through their New Holland Pike location for ideas, whether during or after business hours. He also advises homeowners to come to them with photos, ideas, or favorite materials in mind. And he says timing is everything: The most savvy homeowners contact them during the winter, so that work can begin the second the ground begins to thaw, which means an outdoor oasis blossoms from a dream into reality just in time for spring and summer enjoyment.
Affordable Luxury: How to Create Your Own Outdoor Oasis on a Budget
Kenyon says a water feature is an easy way to transform your outdoor space—even in the tiniest of spaces. “We can design customized water fountains of all sizes,” he says. “They can be fairly small, for a reasonable budget, but still make a dramatic impact.” The soothing, relaxing sound of water can give you an outdoor oasis with a quick turnaround time—installation only takes a day or two.
