The people’s choice among five models at the recent Parade of Homes Delafield site, Barenz Builders’ Prestige II, offers more than 4,400 square feet of grandeur.
Mequon – Home builder Ron Barenz believes that it takes more than a billboard and strings of fluttering plastic flags to set his houses apart from the competition. He wants you to recognize his work the moment you walk through the front door – and not by reading his name off the top of some brochure, either.
Instead, Barenz wants you to think of him when you see what he considers the two major trademarks of his homes: towering fireplaces and the unsparing use of carved oak trim.
Both are evident in his latest model home, a Tudor style number in the Mequon subdivision of River Trail Estates that includes 4,200 square feet, 4 bedrooms and 3 ½ bathrooms. The $489,900 price tag includes the half-acre lot.
As your car coasts down the hill toward the multiple peaks and gables of the cedar-shake roof covering the Barenz home, you pass houses that sell for between $300,000 and $500,000.
The Barenz house stands on a corner lot. A semi-circular driveway and a brick walkway lead to the turret entrance and front door. The lower story is faced with brick that is a mottled gray and brown. Heavy Lannon stone blocks arch around the perimeter of the rounded front door and some of the windows. The plaster-and-board second story mimics the half-timber construction techniques of the Old World.
The outside of the house, with the exception of a large deck off the back, is undeniably traditional and would fit nicely on one of those large wooded lots that overlook Lake Michigan along the North Shore.
Inside, Barenz has tried to stick with the traditional look wherever possible. Too often, he says, builders put up homes that are warm and traditional on the outside but flip-flop to a sterile contemporary style inside.
“We tried to do the downstairs in as close to traditional Tudor style as possible,” Barenz says. “If you’re going to do it right, do it right all the way through.”
The extensive use of carved and raised-panel woodwork is evident in the foyer and continues throughout the house. Smooth strips of carved oak curve around the arched doorways. Lengths of thick crown molding trace the perimeters of ceilings, and heavy oak frames surround the windows. An open stairway with thick handrails, turned spindles, and wide, raised-panel posts rises to the second floor.
Stepping past, you look up through the slanting rows of spindles to see more oak trim around the upstairs doorways and the thick, carved beams that span the ceiling of the master bedroom.
Taken together, all of the wood – the trim, panels, the cabinetry, the built-in shelves, the boxed windows and window benches – constitutes the kind of attention to fine woodwork that has helped Barenz make his mark on the Milwaukee building industry and among customers.
Some of the customers who tour Barenz’s homes live in older house along the North Shore and have grown accustomed to the sort of woodwork that was expected when those fine houses were built years ago. That’s the kind of woodwork Barenz strives to reproduce, and it is the kind of woodwork he says customers tell him they can’t find in other new homes.
“They can always get that standard house and that standard oak,” he says of customers. “But they’re looking for something more unique.”
Although Barenz’s Mequon Tudor sticks to its traditional look throughout the downstairs, there are some modern touches beyond the obvious concessions that have to be made for today’s kitchen appliances and fixtures. For instance, there are skylights over the dining area in the kitchen; a high, sloping ceiling in the living room; and recessed lights here and there.
The second of Barenz’s trademarks, the fireplace, scales the living room’s highest wall. From floor to ceiling it rises 18 ½ feet and from a distance looks like an immense panel of brick and oak. The brick is the same mottled brown and gray used on the exterior of the home, and the heavy oak beams and center panel are stained the same honey tone as the rest of the oak in the house.
The fireplace brings together the most attractive elements of the interior and exterior: finely polished woodwork and the coarse texture and substantial appearance of a brick wall.
A large built-in bookcase stands next to the fireplace. An alcove in another part of the living room houses a wet bar with leaded-glass cupboards. A double set of swinging patio doors leads onto the back deck.
One of the home’s most attractive rooms, the den, is just off the living room. There, bookcases, shelves and raised panel sections of oak wrap around the walls, interrupted only by several windows and a marble fireplace. Thick, carved oak beams outline the angles of the ceiling.
Upstairs, the large master bedroom suite has an enormous walk-in closet that could double as a nursery. The bathroom has the usual amenities you expect in a house of this scale: a platform whirlpool tub and separate shower; plenty of counter space and mirrors.
But the bathroom also has uncommon touches, like the geometric design baked into the top course of blue-gray ceramic tiles that decorate the tub platform. The design is reproduced in an enlarged form in a stained-glass panel on the door of the ceramic-tile shower stall.
One of the other bedrooms also has a private bath, which is far more Spartan than the master bath. Barenz says that room probably would serve as a guest room. The two other bedrooms share a bath, and there is a half-bath downstairs.
Barenz recognizes that this house isn’t for everybody. After all, if you could scrape together a 10% down payment of about $50,000, you’d still be looking at a monthly payment of $3,800 before taxes on a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage at 9.5%.
For that reason, Barenz hopes to come out soon with a model just as rich in woodwork but selling for roughly half the price of the Mequon Tudor. The house would have about 2,600 square feet and sell for about $250,000, including the lot.
“I want to show that you can do the same thing in a smaller home,” Barenz says.
Not to mention within a smaller monthly payment: a mere $1,900 a month. Before taxes. With $25,000 down.
**Featured in: The Milwaukee Journal
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This project has homey feel
West Bend – As business partners, Cheryl and Ron Barenz have built about 250 upscale homes since they formed Barenz Builders almost 25 years ago, two weeks after marriage.
But they’ve only built one house for themselves, a large but homey Tudor on Big Cedar Lake. They moved in 9 ½ years ago, after spending a year planning and designing the home and another year building and landscaping. And they haven’t altered the house since.
Maybe that’s because it couldn’t better express their mutual interests in homes and meticulous, loving craftsmanship.
She is the daughter of a carpenter-contractor; he is the son of a cabinetmaker. While he was still in high school he worked part time as a carpenter for her father; when they were dating, they liked to drive through subdivisions and look at houses. Now is he president and she is vice president of their building firm.
Ron helped build their 6,400-square-foot, four-bedroom home after literally re-building the steep slope from the main floor down to the lake. He used outcropping rock to create terraced levels (one has a waterfall) and built a winding walkway from the screened porch on the lower level down to the water. The home is an exposed ranch with both levels nestled into the hill, providing views of the lake through windows on three sides. There is 125 feet of lake frontage and the lot is 1 ¼ acres.
Despite the 16-foot ceilings in the entry and great room, the homey quality is created by an ample share of beautifully carved and detailed woodwork and adept attention to proportion. Wood trim suits the ceiling height; baseboards, for example, are 10 ½ inches deep and the mantel is 6 feet high, but seems lower. And while the dimensions of the great room are 32 b y 21 feet, furniture placement divides it into two distinct conversation areas.
The couple share the home with their two children: Ronny, 22, a student at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, and Renea, 19, a student at the University of Wisconsin – Washington County. The Barenzes visited recently with Entrée reporter Joy Krause.
Q. Why did you choose your building site and architectural style?
Cheryl: Ron loves to hunt and fish, but we both work really hard – we’re really hands-on. So we knew that for Ron to have any leisure time at all (for fishing) we needed to be on a lake. And for me, I like to just look out at the water and listen to it. It calms me. When you have a high-stress job, you need an outlet.
Ron: We chose the English Tudor style because we both appreciate the carving of the woodwork and the old-world craftsmanship, but with today’s technology and luxuries in mind. We designed it so the interior has different styles in different areas.
The great room is English Tudor and the kitchen-dinette is sophisticated country. The main theme on the upper level is cherry (in the great room), hickory (in the kitchen-dinette) and maple in the dining room with cherry inlays. Downstairs is more casual (North Woods Style) with (hand-chopped) ash, oak, and elm.
Q. What was your biggest challenge?
Ron: Fitting this size home on the property and maintaining the contours of the grades without changing the neighbors’ yards and retaining walls.
Cheryl: Since my husband enjoys hunting and fishing, my challenge was incorporating those motifs with a more sophisticated theme in decorating.
Q. How did you describe your decorating style?
Cheryl: I like to decorate eclectically. I want to see things that are not English Tudor and Old World. So I’ve incorporated things I like – some of the things are a little fun and whimsical. I’ve also used a lot of natural materials like pinecones, twigs, pods, and greenery. (Among her collections, arranged tastefully throughout the home, are handcrafted santas, teddy bears, candles, hats, family items, and purchases made while traveling).
Q. What is your color scheme and how did you determine it?
Cheryl: I chose earthy colors and neutrals with jewel-tone accents. That combination seems more European, to go with the house.
Q. What area of the home best reflects you?
Ron: the lower level for me. I’m a flannel-shirt kind of guy – I like to roll up my sleeves and be outdoors.
Cheryl: I feel really comfortable in the kitchen-dinette. That’s the place for family time, conversations around the table. It’s the place where the family congregates – that’s really important to me because we’re all so busy.
Q. What is your best-kept secret for buying furnishing and accessories?
Cheryl: Now I’m at a place in my life where I look for artwork at antique shops. I like the older, carved frames. We’re still not done decorating. I don’t just buy things to have things on the wall. If I see something I really like, I buy it.
Q. What might you be changing in the future?
Cheryl: The master bathroom. We have a white tile floor. When we built the house they didn’t have tile that looked like stone. Now, that’s what we want.
Ron: And new countertops.
Q. How has your decorating style changed over the years?
Cheryl: I was very contemporary in my taste when we got married. I’ve totally evolved, I think because I appreciate craftsmanship.
