FLORIDA MOM MAGAZINE - September '09 - Gayle Leinwohl - Intracoastal DreamBy: Michele Gillis Photos: Carrie-Lynn Smith
 How do you build a home that showcases a beautiful Intracoastal view and is functional for a family with small children? Just ask Gayle and Ronnie Leinwohl who built their dream home on the Intracoastal a little over a year ago.
When you approach the front door of the two-story Key West style dream home, you can see straight through to an awesome view of the Intracoastal waterway, near Butler Blvd. Gayle and Ronnie designed the house with a lot of windows and large living spaces to accommodate the family, entertaining, and the best way to showcase their beautiful backyard view. They did enlist the talents of Tony Lamell, an architect with Tony Lamell & Associates to draw the plans according to their specifications.
With two children, Jake, 5 and Jordyn, 2, the house was designed with small children in mind with a playroom on one end, the kitchen and dining room in the middle and family room on the other.
"I wanted to be able to see my children and my living room at the same time," said Gayle. "We also have a guest room and an office on the first floor off of the family room."
Ronnie is a civil engineer with Urban Partners Construction, a small boutique general contractor. "I built this home," said Ronnie. "We’ve been here for a little over a year."The Leinwohl’s bought a home on the lot and knocked it down to build their dream home.
Gayle is an optometrist in Mandarin who works part-time three days a week.
The home is 4,500 square feet air-conditioned and a total of 8,300 square feet if you add the garage and porches. "The garage is 2,100 square feet by itself," said Ronnie. "There is a mother-in-law suite, which is another 800 square feet over the garage that we haven’t built out yet."
The house is painted light khaki green on the outside with soft gold, vanilla bean glaze cabinets and built-in shelving throughout the kitchen and family room inside. The floors are maple wood with large area rugs to match the furniture.
"We used golds, reds and greens," said Gayle. "I liked the way they mixed together. We chose the vanilla bean glaze cabinets because we thought dark cabinets would be too dark for this house with the wood floors. They were light, airy and casual." They accented the house with shells, birds, boats, fish and other nautical items to bring together the beachy feel they wanted to achieve.
The Leinwohl’s also built their home around their existing furniture. They expanded the living room to fit their large sectional couch from Norwalk and made sure dining table from Our House, a store in New York, would fit the dining area. "It’s a comfortable, casual home that’s not too big or too small and is centered around the family," said Ronnie. "Being a builder, a civil engineer and looking at how people use homes I looked at costs, verses use, verses value."
In building the home, they thought about what rooms they would use most and mixed the formal living room and dining rooms that many include in their homes. "They were just rooms we don’t use and at $200 a foot, we didn’t want to build a room and not use it," said Ronnie.
The house was built to showcase innovative "green" building practices and is very energy efficient with hurricane windows and foam insulation throughout. The concrete block first floor is insulated with foam as is the entire house.
The kitchen is quite large and has an island with sink in the middle. The countertops are granite and the professional GE appliances are stainless steel. They separated the kitchen and family room area with a bar area complete with a mini fridge and more cabinet space.
Though they do not have a formal dining area, but there is no shortage of places to sit and eat at the Leihwohl’s home. Usually parties and such are centered in the kitchen area, which opens to an expansive patio area with several outside tables for seating. There is also an outdoor grilling area with more seating. "Whenever we entertain, everyone is always in the kitchen or outside" said Gayle.
The yard is large with a playset for the children and leads to a dock, which holds their boats. "We are very big into boating and fishing," said Gayle.
Behind the kitchen is an area with more counter space, a sink and a washer and dryer. A laundry shoot brings the laundry to the first floor. They also have washer and dryer on the second floor. 
The playroom houses all of the children’s toys, a wooden table and chairs for coloring and exercise equipment for the adults. "The playroom is something we definitely needed," said Gayle. "We didn’t have one in our old house and we needed somewhere to put all of their toys."
Jake who enjoys fishing, T-ball and basketball has his bedroom decorated in a nautical theme while Jordyn who is involved in ballet and tap classes has a lovely room decorated in pink with butterflies.
Gayle said she picks a lot of her accents for her home at Steinmart and Marshalls. "You never know what you will find there," she said. "I also read Coastal Living Magazine and visit model homes for ideas."
They also bought a lot of the tiles and flooring for the home at Floor Club. "They were very helpful there," she said.
The Leinwohl’s built the house with future enhancements in mind. They have a cupola, a window room, at the top of the house, which one day will have a floor and will be their wine bar/lookout room. Above the family room, they built the area so one day it could have a floor and possibly be a game room for the children.
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