A man’s home is his castle, or something to that effect goes the old saying. Ron’s castle was custom designed and built and offered him the opportunity to design a garage, two actually, to bring some cars home from the warehouse and enjoy them much more easily. The house sets forth a true estate feeling with magnificent craftsmanship, attention to detail, elegant appointments, terrific flow, exquisite lighting and fantastic balance. Larger rooms allow him to entertain big parties while small nooks help him settle in on cold evenings with a good book and just be absent from the world. The study has a classic looking bar, like something you’d see in an elaborate hotel in the old west, and the second floor overlooks the study and is walled with bookshelves all around, cleverly lit to glow softly. Accessing the second floor is an elevator or a spiral staircase, pick your poison. There are enough bookshelves to put some public libraries to shame, but to Ron they were spaces for toy cars.
“I’ve always had toy cars, like most car guys, you can have thousands of scale models but only a few actual cars,” he said. “Knowing I wanted to be able to enjoy my cars, that was how I designed the house, but also if I decide to sell, someone could fill the shelves with real books or art or whatever their passion might be.”
Mind you, only a snippet of his collection, both real and toy, is at the house. The rest are at his offices or the DFW Elite Toy Museum, which he founded. The garages were purpose-designed, the idea being that one provides enough space for his collector cars and the other houses his family’s daily drivers.
“There are two garages, one on each side of the driveway, and the one attached to the house is where we have a little bit of a museum,” he said. “The fun cars are in there with some original scale model German training model cars. It’s a lot of fun in there and it’s right off the house, so if I want to open it during parties and let people look in there, it’s easy to do so.”
From the street, it’s obvious there are two garages opposing one another, but they don’t look nearly as big as they truly are. The attached garage shows a two-car garage door and a single-car garage door eluding to a 3-car garage. But the garages are extended and widened, and provide parking for six cars comfortably and could likely hold eight in a pinch. The interior walls of the attached garage hold a number of interesting elements related to German training cars. From actual model cars with working mechanisms to models of components like braking systems to educate drivers on the various parts and components of a car to make them better drivers. Ron has amassed an amazing collection of unique items rarely seen on this side of the Atlantic.
“The German driving standards are remarkable, they really want their citizens to be safe and know how to use a car and know how to maintain a car,” he said. “It’s very different than here and these models helped to educate people in how to take care of a car and operate a car.”
Giving the attached garage a calm, spacious feel, Ron painted the walls blue and applied white to the trim and ceilings. The floors match with a SnapLock modular tile floor in matching light grey with blue parking spaces. Windows in the true arch design add a classical elegance to the space and provide an exceptional amount of light while breaking up the boxy nature that is a garage. Interestingly, Ron has demonstrated very well what can be done with a garage of a relatively normal size – keep the décor to a moderate level so as to avoid a cluttered look, use colors on the walls so that the walls themselves become part of the décor, don’t be afraid of crown moldings and window dressings, dress the floors, and enjoy the space.
Even the second garage has been decorated more in the style of a room of the house, not so much a garage. Red walls with a light colored floor, some white cabinets and storage, art upon the walls and a chandelier define the space as much more living room than garage. But what’s brilliant is Ron’s use of colors and slight use of décor, allowing the room itself and the cars to balance with the overall scheme. It’s elegant and delicate, yet bold and strong – balanced.
“It’s fun having cars at the house, so many people have off-site storage and I did too at one time, still do, but part of building this house was building enough garage space that I could have some cars here too,” he said.
Ron’s taste in cars runs in favor of the sporty, at least in this garage. A McLaren, BMW i8, Porsche 911 Targa, Ferrari 430, and Alfa Romeo 4C indicate a serious interest in going fast with razor sharp handling as well as the latest technology and styling concepts. A lone vintage Volkswagen Cabriolet represents his interest in the older cars and one wonders what’s in the warehouse. The VW also plays off of the German training models.
“They’re all fun cars, each has a different personality,” he said.
Kind of like the two garages.
