A lakefront Lakewood home is a passion project 10 years in the making. When homeowner and Citiroc Real Estate Company listing agent Jim Gountis bought the house, located at 17810 Lake Road, in 2015, he remarked that the 1923 residence hadn’t been updated since the ‘90s. So he sought a tasteful renovation that would fuse modern amenities with historical charm and curb appeal on the exterior. The result is a 7,727-square-foot masterpiece with a market price of $3,590,000.
(Courtesy Howard Hanna Real Estate, Used With Permission)
It started in the kitchen. Gountis recognized it as a focal gathering space and wanted to position it as such. He shifted it slightly from the back corner of the house — which is now a mud room — to center it and connect it to the living and dining spaces. Now, after entering through an expanded front entrance and checker-floored foyer, it’s the first space you see.
“My wife really did most of the design,” he says. “She knew where she wanted things.”
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And it’s a sight to behold. White cabinets cover every appliance, and two glass-windowed black cabinets break up the scheme to showcase statement dishes. A long window behind the sink welcomes cooking with a view.
The minimalist feel is emboldened by a marble island, countertop, backsplash and hood over the stove. The light, shiny slab installed by Architectural Justice creates a glamorous flow throughout the kitchen.
“We’re Greek,” Gountis explains. “They use marble for everything. Marble is a natural stone in Greece.”
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The marble continues in other parts of the house, namely the en suite bathroom. A golden marbled shower is eye-catching, yet somehow mellows perfectly into the rest of the room’s design — matching both the vanity’s backsplash and a nearby fireplace.
The owner’s suite, bathroom and closets all connect through a curved hallway on the far end of the second floor. One closet is a walk-in with sprawling shelves and high ceilings, adjoined to a storage area concealed by a wall of mirrors.
The bedroom is the simplest of the primary spaces, but windowed doors leading out to a massive waterside balcony is compensation.
Three other bedrooms complete the second floor. One is a sleek and neutral guest room. Two children’s bedrooms are customized to their interests, with themed walls painted by local artists.
An intriguing door introduces a narrow, secluded staircase leading up to more guest spaces, which rounds out the house’s numbers to seven bedrooms and eight full bathrooms. Unlike the rest of the home, each third-floor space boasts original hardwood floors.
The lower level was carpeted over and divided into a bright game room, a movie theater and a spa.
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Back on the main level, a living area added to the home during construction leads to a backyard that required more work than anticipated.
“The [original] pool caved in,” Gountis recalls. “So we tore out everything. We just rebuilt the whole backyard at that point.”
It paid off, resulting in a new pool and Gountis’s favorite part of the house: a covered patio with automatic Phantom screens, equipped with a TV and furniture. A panoramic, unobscured view of Lake Erie makes it a slice of paradise right at your fingertips.
By the end of the renovation projects, nearly every room had been touched. Wooden doors, a green-tiled sunroom and intricate ceiling moldings around light fixtures remain stylish odes to the home’s original bones.
“We could have started this earlier,” Gountis admits, “but we just kept changing our minds on what we were going to do. If we would have done this when we first moved in, I don't think it would have been as detailed and as thought-out.”
But, he concedes, it was worth the wait.
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