Former firefigher builds his masterpiece
Between battling blazes Melvin Vaughn taught himself to be a developer
It took Melvin Vaughn three decades to build his dream home.
During that time, the firefighter taught himself the ropes of residential construction and real estate development. In between blazes, that is.
Now Vaughn, a full-fledged developer who doused his other career five years ago, is showing off his masterpiece: a multimillion-dollar spec house in California’s Silicon Valley.
“You very rarely get to build a house of this scale. It’s been a dream of mine,” he says of the cutting-edge trophy home intended to entice a tech executive, celebrity or sports pro. “All the things I’ve learned over 30 years or so I put into this particular house.”
The modernistic temple to high-tech luxury nestles into a slope in Los Altos Hills, reported to be the wealthiest town in the U.S.
Sheathed in Brazilian hardwood, white acrylic stucco and glass, it makes the most of “drop-dead gorgeous views” of San Francisco Bay, mountains and valley, according to architect Robert Swatt.
The smart home has systems for security, lighting, climate and audiovisuals. It’s also outfitted with invisible speakers, roof-top solar panels and an elevator connecting three spacious levels.
No expense was spared on the showpiece that would bear “my name and my reputation,” says Vaughn, who years ago lived in an old trailer on a job site to save money. (“People thought I was nuts,” the learn-it-yourselfer laughs over the phone from Los Altos Hills.)
He’s travelled a great distance along the trial-and-error road since buying a termite-ravaged ranch home to renovate and resell in 1986.
The self-described “research guru” used his off-hours to immerse himself in how-to manuals and VHS tapes (no YouTube or internet back then) in order to become his own general contractor.
He continued to buy and flip about two dozen fixer-uppers before establishing his development firm, Vaughn House, in 2013 when he retired from his job as fire battalion chief.
Vaughn enlisted Swatt’s services for his signature project after seeing the designer’s work at an Open House showing, and thinking: “Wow, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Swatt, co-founder of awardwinning Swatt Miers architecture firm, was wary of corners being cut as is often done on spec projects. But Vaughn “did a beautiful job … true to our vision,” says Swatt. “There’s no question this is a first-class, high-end home.”
Working from Vaughn’s twopage wish list detailing everything from open concept to amenities, “I just went to town,” Swatt says.
The vistas and California lifestyle demanded abundant use of floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass walls that blur the distinction between indoors and outdoors, the architect notes.
Natural light is at the forefront of the interior where a 24-foot ceiling in the central great room lifts both the eye and spirit. Am- ple public spaces are provided on the main floor and lowerlevel theatre and family/game room.
And visitors are invited to linger at the infinity-edge pool, on the putting green or in the separate 800-square-foot guest house.
Vaughn recognizes the posh pad — the first of four he has planned — isn’t for everyone. But his “Eichler on steroids” (a reference to post- Second World War developer Joseph Eichler’s flat-roofed, glasswalled houses) will appeal to “people who love modern ar- chitecture and aren’t afraid of what others might think,” he says. For Mauricio Umansky, founder of The Agency luxury real estate brokerage, “the architectural detail is absolutely fantastic. It’s new and different and very cool.”
Gina Blancarte, another of its four listing agents, suggests a possible purchaser based on the location in the tech capital of the world, where Apple’s new “Spaceship” campus shimmers in the distance.
“I think it would be neat for a woman CEO to buy it.”