Family’s weekend home offers a sleek space in the sky
As the sun sinks early on a winter evening, the lights of Houston begin to twinkle below. From their spare, bright condo in the Warwick Towers, George and Debbie Boozalis — along with their five children, ages 16 to 22 — can see the city shine and shimmer for miles in three directions.
The condo is a weekend getaway for the Boozalises; they live in Victoria, where he’s an eye surgeon. Much of their extended family lives in Houston, and they found themselves making the two-hour drive with an exhausting frequency. That’s when they decided to buy their own place in the city.
A couple of years ago, they found a 3,085-squarefoot condo near the top of the Warwick, next to Hermann Park — a location they’d admired for years. They spent about a year renovating the place. Now, roughly every other weekend, they come into the city and invite family
and friends to enjoy their bright space and stunning views.
“On clear days, you can’t see all the way to Galveston, but it’s pretty darn close,” George Boozalis says. The family wanted to make the most of that view, so they gutted the place, tearing down most of the interior walls. Now, instead of several small rooms, the condo is wide open and full of windows.
Boozalis had two guiding design principles: First, he wanted the interior to reflect the Brutalist architecture of the Warwick Towers’ exterior — everything squared-off and straight with clean, hard lines. Second, he wanted the colors inside to reflect the colors outside the window. “You’re up in the air — you’re a sky dweller,” he says, “so you shouldn’t have any earth tones.”
Almost everything is some combination of black, white and gray, from the pristine white leather sectional to the massive kitchen island made of Grigio Carnico marble.
“He’s like no other client I’ve ever had,” says Cantoni designer Gena Sylvester, who worked with the Boozalises. “He did his research months before he ever walked in the door.”
Sylvester helped locate furniture and accessories that fit the required aesthetic, which Boozalis calls “elegant Brutalism”: sleek glass tables, leather dining chairs, hard-edged light fixtures and square electrical outlets.
Every detail of the condo was designed to provide a comfortable, low-maintenance gather- ing space for the Boozalises and their extended family. “We’re coming in, we’re having people over,” Boozalis says. “We can accommodate the kids when they’re visiting and put things away so it’s neat.”
Three of the kids are in college, so they’re not around all the time, but there’s space for all five to sleep: Unfussy leather sofas in the bedrooms fold out into king- and queensize beds.
To reimagine the kitchen, bathrooms and a tucked-away office/ laundry room, the family turned to Eggersmann Kitchens, a German company that has a showroom in Houston. The Eggersmann style fit the family’s taste perfectly — all marble and high-gloss acrylic, with clean lines and smooth surfaces uninterrupted by knobs, dials or door handles.
The kitchen, once a walled-off room, is now part of the open living space. Along the remaining wall, glossy gray doors open to reveal a refrigerator and a separate freezer, two pantries and storage space for kitchen tools.
A Gaggenau induction cooktop keeps the surface of the island immaculate and smooth. Electrical outlets are tucked away in drawers next to the appliances that require them. Even the ventilation hood is nearly invisible, says Evan Soltoff, the Eggersmann showroom manager in Houston. “They wanted the hood not to be a distraction,” he says. “It’s recessed into the ceiling, up and out of the way, so it’s not visually part of the space.”
In a narrow space behind the kitchen, the office and laundry space have the same look — smooth surfaces and a place for everything, from a laptop computer to the ironing board. In an open, minimalist condo, there’s no place for a room with junk and clutter, Soltoff says: “You could see it from the main living area, so it had to be something that looked as high-quality and clean as what we have in the main space.”
And the Boozalises didn’t want anything to distract from their spectacular view. Even the kitchen chairs are counter-height, elevated slightly so the family can sit together at the table and still see Houston over the balcony’s railing.
The view from one side is the nearby Texas Medical Center; at the opposite end, the downtown skyline shimmers. Also visible from floor-to-ceiling windows: Hermann Park, the Houston Zoo, Rice University and the Houston Ship Channel.
“This is our backyard,” Debbie Boozalis says, gesturing to the park and museum district, where family members jog and play and visit museums and the zoo. They can hear concerts at Miller Outdoor Theater from their balcony.
No blinds or drapes distract from that view, but automatic shades can cover the windows in a matter of seconds. “Every window has the same blackout shades,” Debbie Boozalis says. “You just press some buttons and leave.” So when the weekend’s over, the family can turn out the lights, go back to Victoria and not worry until they’re ready to return to their cool, sleek space in the sky. alyson.ward@chron.com twitter.com/alysonward