The new home of David Sturgeon and his wife Trupti “Trudi” Patel, which features Truberry Group’s signature details, is built on the hillside of a former quarry overlooking a woods.

The 4,300-square-foot open home includes a main floor with a master suite and a finished walkout lower level with two bedrooms and bath off an entertainment area.

The couple, now married just under three years, decided they weren’t content in a 1,000-square-foot apartment in the Short North. They wanted more space indoors and outdoors, with a yard for their active Golden Retriever, Archie.

They toured various communities and builders’ models. At a home show just a year ago, they met Scott Shively, owner of Truberry Group, who took them to visit one of the company’s models. They did just that and, after finding a desirable lot in Marble Cliff Crossing off of Riverside Drive, chose Truberry Group to move forward with designing and building their home.

The Sturgeons started the adventure by taking time to list the details they wanted in their new custom home, and Shively had his designers create two plans. One fit the bill with very few changes, and before construction started last June, the couple had all but completed interior design choices.

“It was fun. It was a process. We met maybe 10 times with Truberry's designers and were able to make every decision from the ground up,” Sturgeon says.

With 10-foot ceilings in the kitchen, dining area and adjoining rooms, and 12-foot ceilings in the family room, the couple felt that 8-foot doors would provide the most aesthetic complement to the high space.

“Most of the features (lighting fixtures, appliances, wood floors, etc.) we picked out before they broke ground,” Sturgeon says.

Unlike many families that vary the color of their walls from room to room, the Sturgeons chose one color — the warm Duxberry Gray — for all of the walls except the master bedroom, which is a cooler Kingsport grey. They kept the wood trim designs that are featured in the majority of homes by Truberry Group and opted to use a wider crown molding in the lower ceiling areas while keeping the higher ceilings free of crown molding.

A corner fireplace in the great room, easy to admire from the overly wide foyer, is stacked with random-sized Wisconsin ledge stone. The fireplace also features a raised limestone slab hearth, which Sturgeon says he wanted for seating.

Most of the features that adorn the home were included in Truberry’s original plan. The wide foyer has three niches with recessed lights that will highlight paintings the couple plans to hang. Off the foyer through handsome French doors featuring etched glass panes is the office with its generous windows. It is Sturgeon’s plan to have the clear glass panels beside the entry door etched to lessen visibility from outside.

Also off the foyer is a powder room with a contemporary pedestal sink and lighting that Patel selected to carry out the modern theme of their furniture, tables and artwork.

In the kitchen, the couple chose the same cabinets and hardware that are featured in the Truberry Group model in Tartan West. They selected stainless appliances and twin hanging lights with white globes to light the bi-level island that has brown Caledonia granite tops (as do the base cabinets along the walls).

The island has six stools with black padded upholstery matching the nearby circular couch in the great room. The dining area is between the kitchen and rear wall. At Shively’s suggestion, the windowed sidewall was bumped out and the wall rounded.

Large rear windows expose the wooded hillside across a shallow valley in the former quarry. A deck runs the length of the home and is accessible through a sliding door in the dining area. The master suite off the great room, also with large windows, has a two-person shower with fixed and flexible showerheads on each end. The homeowners enter the shower through an opening in a glass block wall; those same blocks are used in the exterior window, as well. The twin-sink vanity is of the same granite as the kitchen. At the end of the bath is a walk-in closet with custom storage for both his and her clothes.

Stairs off the family room to the lower level are bounded by dark wood railings with custom newel posts and wrought iron balusters. “I had to have this,” Sturgeon says, of the stairs details.

Sturgeon worked closely with Truberry Group on the plans for the lower level to design a total “entertainment retreat.” The lower level is mostly carpeted with one large section of ceramic tile that boasts an intricate inlay pattern. It’s a “guy’s room,” he says, with a wall-mounted TV, surround sound, a bar and kitchen with Vermont white granite tops. A fireplace is faced with the same manufactured stone used on the front of the home.

Two bedrooms abut the room, as does a full bath with a granite sink top. Controls for the whole-house sound and four television sets are housed in the storage area off the room. The walkout opens to a patio below the main-level deck that’s made of pavers and is partially covered by the deck. A gas fire pit is nestled in a rounded corner of the patio near the foot of the stairs that lead to the deck.

As the home was being built, the couple visited the site every day and got to know the supervisor quite well. Because they were so close to the process, they were able to spot changes early enough to keep the cost of the change orders low.

For example, on one visit they noticed the 6-foot-wide sliding door to the deck didn’t afford enough window area. The framers adjusted the opening in order to install a door twice as wide. Also, the Sturgeons were at the site when the original chandelier was installed and noticed it wasn’t regal enough for the large space. The lighting company was able to replace it with a larger chandelier in a matter of days.

“Through it all, Truberry's representatives always accepted our ideas and said ‘no problem.’ They were fantastic,” Sturgeon says.

The couple’s next steps will be furnishing the home. But since both often work long hours and aren't home as much as they would like to be, they’re not going to rush.

Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor for Luxury Living.