Located in Louisville, KY, is a home who's front is specially designed to look like St. Briavels castle near the England and Wales border while the back of the castle reflects a more Tuscan inspired feel from Italy.
This is a vision that both Clark Scott and
his wife Kelly had when visiting Europe and
wanted to bring those styles back to the U.S. Over the course of a year, Clark’s vision came together starting with the decision to build with concrete, as was done in ancient civilization. An easier way to achieve this was to use NUDURA Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF’s).
The home has two unique looks from back to front. The front has a distinctive English appearance that is accented by radius turrets, a gatehouse and dark gray limestone. The back of the house is a good representation of the Tuscany region of Italy with its lighter cream-colored stone, enclosed courtyard area and swimming pool.
Inside the castle, the detailed design reflects medieval times keeping in mind the Scott’s four children, whose bedrooms reflect their own personalities. Designing an 11,500-square-foot ICF castle with six bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms is an intricate task that requires foresight and imagination. With this in mind, Scott, who was involved in the entire construction process, contacted Advanced Ready Mix of Louisville, KY well before the start of the project in order to find the subcontractors that met his specifications.
For this project, 12,000 cubic yards of concrete yards of concrete were used throughout the construction along with 23, 000 square feet of Nudura Forms, with 4,600 of those being radius walls. The basement was built using a 12-inch concrete core, the first floor used a 10-inch core and the second floor was an 8-inch core. The radius turrets were all built with ICFs and were custom made at the manufacturing plant and shipped to the job. Even the cantilevered top of the largest turret was engineered with a double brick ledge and a steel ring beam underneath so that it could also be made of ICFs.
Although there were challenges, Albert Miller, the ICF Installer on the job, was able to overcome these challenges. “With Nudura’s custom radius forms it went up relatively smooth,” he said.
Scott was no stranger to building with concrete. He built his previous home out of ICFs several years before constructing this castle. Like many homeowners who have owned an ICF home, he understood the value of living in this type of a construction and made sure this house would be built in the same manner. Scott attributes building with Insulated Concrete Forms to the many benefits they offer, including soundproofing, energy efficiency, strength, and resistance to fire, wind and insects.
While no energy bill is going to be small in an 11,500-square-foot house, the Scotts are very pleased with their utility bills.