Inviting for three generations
Couple eases into retirement with renovation to Pirates Cove house with room for family
Mark Knust grew up spending weekends and summers in his family’s Galveston vacation home and knew that someday he’d have kids and grandkids who’d do the same.
Back in 1985, when Mark and his wife, Mitzi, were just starting their family, they bought a home in Pirates Cove with Mark’s brother. Several years later they knew they needed their own, bigger place, so they bought one in the same neighborhood.
It was at that home that the Knusts’ two sons — now 34 and 31 years old — learned to fish and swim and where they brought carloads of friends every chance they could.
Mitzi jokes that she spent a lot of time at Randall’s, shopping to feed hungry boys, and Mark says that once the boys started driving, they never knew how many kids would be sleeping over until they got up in the morning. And they both loved every minute of it.
It was crushing in 2008 when Hurricane Ike’s storm surge wiped out the bottom level of their vacation home — and worse when looters carried off what was left.
But the Knusts, now married 38 years, rebuilt and kept entertaining their own friends and their kids’ friends as much as they could. By 2015, they needed more room — this time for grandkids.
Their goal was to create a space where three generations could continue the family’s love of water and watersports together. They considered buying a lot and building a bigger home in Pirates Cove, but when the perfect place came up for sale, they snatched it up, knowing that with the right contractor and interior designer they could turn it into the home they wanted.
Instead of a small living room, it has a giant open space taking in the kitchen, living room, dining and breakfast areas.
It also has balconies on the east and west sides, so they can watch the sun come up with a cup of coffee or enjoy a sunset and a different kind of beverage from the comfort of wicker rocking chairs. They have a small pool, and a boat dock holds the fishing boat they occasionally take out onto the bay.
The interior walls were yellow, and the furnishings were dated and too traditional for the Knusts, both 62 years old. Mark Knust is semi-retired from the two oil-field-services companies he owns.
They called in Doug LeBoeuf of LeBoeuf Homes — the builder they would have hired for a new home — and Marie Flanigan of Marie Flanigan Interiors. Renovations began in January 2016 and were done by November of that year.
They asked LeBoeuf and Flanigan for a more contemporary home, something with light colors and comfortable, casual furnishings. Chairs and sofas had to be sturdy and good sized because Mark Knust is 6 feet 5 inches tall, and the couple’s sons are 6 feet and 6 feet 2 inches tall — and one of them is a 275-pound power lifter.
And it all needed to be sophisticated enough for semiretired grandparents and tough enough for a messy grandson who loves spaghetti.
“We wanted to maximize the changes without going crazy on the budget, but it was still a lot of work and a lot of time,” Flanigan said. “Just a tip — the fastest change is paint. Taking out that yellow and putting in white is such a clean and fresh change. It brightened it up and made it coastal and airy and fresh.”
Flanigan noted that the contemporary palette required a lot of gray and earthy neutrals with soft blue-green accents inspired by the ocean.
“Almost this entire project is indoor-outdoor, so it’s extremely livable. Grandkids running around? No problem,” she said.
All of the furniture is new, as are about 90 percent of the home’s accessories. The master bathroom got a complete makeover, and the kitchen and the rest of the bathrooms got serious updates.
First, the big surfaces. Wood flooring was refinished from its orange-y pine to a more toneddown natural look. Yellow walls got a white shiplap treatment, and on the fireplace, chunky limestone was replaced with a concrete finish, more shiplap and a mantle of reclaimed wood. Four-inch tile that covered counters in the kitchen and bathrooms was replaced with sheets of super-sturdy Neolith sintered stone.
Flanigan made the most of space by removing the oversized garden tub and replacing it with a slimmer soaking tub in the master bathroom. Saltillo tile was replaced by porcelain tile that looks like wood with a dark taupe finish. Natural wood cabinets stained brown are topped with gray-veined Neolith stone that resembles Cararra marble but without the work or worry.
The finished look is clean and flawless, with every sofa and chair comfortable and rooms perfectly suited to the Knusts and their family. One guest room is meant for grandkids, with adorable twin beds with matching trunks. A seating area on the second-floor landing has a sectional sofa that serves as a fifth place for guests to sleep.
Though the Knusts knew they wanted their Galveston home to be more contemporary, they didn’t know exactly what that meant. They left it to Flanigan’s staff to make selections that they could sign off on — and every now and then Mark Knust wondered what he’d gotten into.
“Once we started working with Marie and her team, we just left it to her. They’d show us a few things — and they were all nice — but she knew which one she liked best. I tried battling her on a few things, and I lost on all of them, including those balls in the fireplace,” Mark said, pointing to a pile of gray ceramic balls in the living-room fireplace.
“She said, ‘That fireplace is going to look beautiful — have you seen those fireballs?’ I’m like, ‘fireballs?’ I said, ‘Marie, we’re old-style, traditional people, we don’t use fireballs.’ She says, ‘You’re going to love them.’ And now it’s my favorite feature in the whole house. Man, I love turning that fireplace on — it’s so nice. They get molten looking, and they’re all orange.”
The master suite has a small seating area off to one side; previous owners used it as a small office. Now, though, it has a trundle daybed — perfect for napping grandchildren — and a view of the ocean. In the center is a large pendant with an oversized, perforated wood shade.
“That was another one. I said, ‘Marie, you’ve got to get this out of here. That’s not going to work; it’s too big for the room,’ ” Mark said, enjoying telling another story on himself. “She raised it up, and now it is really cool. I lose again.”
For Flanigan, it’s the compostion of that master bedroom that makes the room so inviting.
“My favorite room is the master bedroom. It’s such a beautiful collection of contemporary pieces mixed with woven elements. The driftwood over the bed is such a simple element,” Flanigan said.
That it’s one of the Knusts’ second homes — they also have a South Texas hunting ranch — means they could do things they might not do in their primary house. Seagrass rugs and natural fiber window shades suited the island lifestyle perfectly.
A layered wooden sculpture by Caprice Pierucci — whose work is at Gremillion & Co. Fine Art — over the fireplace makes you pause and smile.
There are a few things in the home that the Knusts knew they had to keep: a collection of wildlife art and a pair of taxidermy fish mounts. A couple of the framed images reside on a wall just outside the master bedroom, and more line a wall upstairs.
Those fish mounts represent good times the Knusts had years ago, when they spent more time fishing. There’s a 6-pound, 8-ounce speckled trout that Mitzi caught and a 13-pound redfish that Mark snagged back before they had kids.
“Here are our fish that we caught,” Mitzi said showing off their trophies in the co-master bedroom upstairs. They both laughed at the idea of their elegant interior designer finding a spot to hang a couple of nearly 40-year-old fish on wooden plaques.
They appreciate that Flanigan’s team was game — and that they really did find the perfect spot for them.
“My oldest son stays in here,” Mark said with a smile. “He says, ‘Dad, these fish aren’t going anywhere.’ ”