Sun West Custom Homes’ luxury mansion in MacDonald Highlands snared several Silver Nugget Awards and was a finalist for three others. The home with a midcentury modern design is called Serenity, which was named the Custom Home of the Year.
It also won for best luxury single-family detached home priced at more than $1.3 million. It also won for its design and architecture.
Serenity was a finalist for the categories of best unique living space and for its kitchen and master bathroom.
Located at 1210 MacDonald Ranch Drive on a 0.65-acre lot overlooking DragonRidge Country Club, the single-story home measures nearly 8,500 square feet with five bedrooms, six baths and a four-car garage. It has a theater room, rooftop lifestyle deck for city views, wine room, prep kitchen and pantry, resort-style pool and spa, built-in barbecue area and outdoor kitchen.
“What makes the home cool is it’s pretty contemporary for the neighborhood, and it fits in nicely,” said Sun West President Dan Coletti. “We are next to the clubhouse, which has a contemporary flavor to it, and on the other side of us are homes that have been there for 10 years. We’re bridging the gap between the old and new.”
Coletti said Serenity “was designed with tranquility and relaxation at its core.”
It starts with the water feature at the courtyard entrance of the home and includes the massage spa room and the rooftop lifestyle deck. It goes out to the infinity-edge pool, and Coletti said the combination of water and fire features changes the energy in the home.
“Within minutes of watching moving water or dancing fire, you can just feel the stress drop away,” Coletti said. “You are invariably drawn to it, and it always leaves a lasting impression.”
While designing the home as a golf-course-view home, the challenge was to bring in the city view.
They added the rooftop lifestyle deck with an outdoor kitchen, TV, furniture and the grand fire feature because only one story was allowed on the lot, he said.
“It had awesome views to the golf course but not really views to the city,” Coletti said. “We had some challenges of how are we going to take this lot and put a home on it that still gives you the feel that you’re in MacDonald Highlands and you can still see the Strip.”
When you approach the house, you go through a courtyard and a gate, which Coletti called cool because of its pockets. If the sliding gate is all the way open, you can see into the courtyard, he said.
“You kind of get a glimpse of how beautiful everything is behind the gate, but on the other hand, because you may want some privacy, the entire front courtyard gate can reappear and give you the privacy you need,” Coletti said. “As you approach the house, there’s water to the left and right, and it flows underneath the foundation to the backyard and the pool across the back. Water comes right up to the edge of the master bedroom sliding doors, which is a cool feature.”
Coletti said the home looks bigger than it is because it’s dominated by glass. There are wide sliding glass doors that open the great room and master bedroom to the pool, he said.
Because of the way the property was oriented in comparison to the sun’s path and the direction of the prevailing winds, Coletti said he designed the home to allow for most of the back to include large glass pocketing doors that enable gatherings that accommodate a large number of family and friends.
“This is very much an indoor-outdoor type of lifestyle,” Coletti said. There’s “a lot of volume” when you come into the house with the great room and dining room, bar and kitchen all open, so that part of the house feels big, Coletti said.
“It’s pretty contemporary with tall ceilings with a lot of glass and stone,” Coletti said. “It’s really pretty.”