Luxury home has full living quarters on both floors

Patty Gentry fell in love with the house at 227 Crimson Dr. almost immediately when she walked inside.

Now, more than 15 years later, the 8,281-square-foot home inside The Woods in Richmond has been home for her, her husband, Mark, and their five children.

When the two married in 2002, they blended their families and needed a bigger house. They’d looked at a couple of other houses, but when Patty walked in and saw the open concept combining the kitchen and living area, she knew their search was finished.

“And this is where we spend 90 percent of our time,” she said of the area that flows together, culminating into beautiful window views of the nearby lake.

Mark said they knew it was a nice subdivision, too.

“We’ve got really good neighbors,” he said.

“This neighborhood does Chillaxing with the Neighbors, and they rotate people’s houses who host it. And in the summer, they have an annual picnic,” Patty said.

An arched entryway and white columns welcome visitors into the formal living room, where lots of natural light spills in through large windows. Across from it is the formal dining room, which also boasts similar windows.

“And the chandeliers, I love these,” Patty said. “(The builder) did some nice trim work when working on this.”

The master bedroom is very spacious with its own walk-out deck, a large walk-in closet and a jacuzzi tub. One bathroom upstairs and two downstairs have Whirlpool tubs.

The home has worked well for their large family. With three bedrooms upstairs and three on the basement level, Patty said it’s basically two houses in one. Each of their daughters even had their own bathroom when they lived at home.

Downstairs has a full kitchen, laundry room, the bedrooms and bathrooms, an office, a sitting area and a theater room, where they recently put in a projector and surround sound. Through double doors off the kitchen is a spacious room that holds a pool table and dartboards. Mark said they’ve had many banquets and soccer parties for their kids there.

“They’d play pool and watch movies. It’s great when they had friends over,” said Patty. “They had their own little area. We’ve done a lot of entertaining. We’ve had New Year’s celebrations, milestone birthday celebrations, we’ve had Christmas and Thanksgiving just about every year. We’re able to really accommodate a lot of people for the holidays. We have big families and combine them. So that’s been nice.”

The Gentrys put in a 30,000-gallon pool with a waterfall a couple years after they moved in. The area is beautifully lit, surrounded by brick and has a hot tub nearby.

“It’s such a nice place to entertain,” Patty said.

Out back is Patty’s other favorite spot: a screened-in living area. They recently put in composite decking that covers the screened area and the hot tub area so that water from the deck above drains out and keeps those areas dry.

“It’s a neat system. There’s been no leaking or anything. It’s been really good,” Patty said.

Not only does the downstairs area have everything for a living quarters, but it also has its own driveway and access to the house.

Mark said his favorite area of the house is the downstairs garage—which Patty calls his man cave.

“It gives me a lot of space to put things,” he said. “You could put a large boat or multiple cars in here.”

Patty said, most importantly, they’re thankful to have been able to raise their family there.

“We love it. It’s definitely been our home because our kids grew up here together. And there was plenty of room for activities,” she said. “We were fortunate to find it and be here this long.”

“It was the perfect home for us and the three kids,” Mark said.

And this year, they will continue one tradition for certain: All of their kids, who have gone off to college or gotten jobs of their own, will come home, wear matching pajamas on Christmas Eve and spend the holiday together. They put up the family tree downstairs and decorate it with all of the kids’ ornaments from over the years.

“The girls make sure (the tree) is up,” Mark said.

“I can’t imagine raising them anywhere else,” Patty said.