Rob Lightbody - Lightbody Media
by Kelly Petryszyn | photos provided by Stouffer Realty, The Kelly Folden Group and KNL Custom Homes
A missed appointment led Tyler and Danielle Hysell on their path toward destiny.
They were meeting with their real estate agent, Kelly Folden, for a second look at a house that they thought was going to be the one when the other agent never showed. Kelly suggested they look at a home she and her husband, Todd Folden, president of KNL Custom Homes, lived in that doubled as a model home. The Hysells were amazed, and their minds were quickly made up — the 5,400-square-foot home on a 2.4-acre wooded lot in Sharon Township was meant to be their forever home.
“There was attention to detail. A lot of the wood drew me in. The way it was finished — it looks like art,” Tyler says of the home they bought and then moved into earlier this year.
When you enter the foyer, a stately curved hickory staircase with intricate ironwork sets the tone for the four-bedroom, 5 1/2-bath home.
“We have a carpenter who has been with us over 20 years that does all the interior steps. It was handmade on-site,” Todd says. “We wanted it to be rustic but still have that formal richness to it.”
Rob Lightbody - Lightbody Media
Rob Lightbody - Lightbody Media
Rob Lightbody - Lightbody Media
The dining room is distinct from the rest of the first floor with blue walls and white trim that offer a new canvas to highlight its elegant walnut floor, as well as a handcrafted built-in black hutch with seeded glass doors and a granite countertop. “[It’s] a bit of wow factor,” he says. A graceful crystal chandelier — similar to the ones that adorn other rooms throughout the house — caps a table a craftsman handmade from a live-edge slab of a 200-year-old black walnut tree.
Todd held no stops in the kitchen. He had a metalsmith craft a copper hood over a Thermador oven that's displayed atop custom rich black corbels, which also dress up the edges of a nearby island.
Rob Lightbody - Lightbody Media
“It gives it a little design flair,” he says. The cabinets are knotty alder to flow with the rest of the home, and a second island has a limestone back to provide a contrast and tie into the Ohio limestone fireplace in the two-story great room.
That feature is arguably the most impressive custom addition, towering 23 feet and crowned with an olden barn beam used as a statement mantle — old square-head nails left in for an authentic touch. The eye travels to the windows — 12 glass panels that were cleanly framed with hand-molded wooden trim, so the view of mature oak, walnut, beech and maple trees is invited in.
“The windows are big, open glass, no grids or anything,” Todd says. “The house, it’s in a development, but we tried to make it feel like it was on its own little parcel with no one around it.”
For the Hysells, those details create a transcendent experience. “It made it look like we’re on vacation in some type of mountain lodge,” Tyler says.
It’s fitting that the outdoorsy couple’s favorite spot is the patio with a stamped concrete floor and a stunning custom milled ash and hickory framed roof with skylights. It has a stacked stone fireplace, a ceiling fan, speakers and a TV, but it’s mostly a place to unwind and take in wildlife — white-tailed deer, raccoons, squirrels and even a neighborhood tomcat.
It brings Tyler back to childhood days spent playing in the woods amongst frogs and snakes in Ravenna and prompts him to look forward to making new memories with their 2-year-old son, Ayden. “I feel like this is a place that I can allow my son to go out and have the same experience,” he says.
Lately, he has been sitting out listening to the nearby tumbling water feature as their newborn, Lydia, sleeps in his arms. That ambiance is what sold them, and custom details reignite that every day, whether they are cozying up by the patio fireplace or gazing upon trees from the great room.
“It allows you to be a part of nature through the house,” Tyler says.
