Everglades Island home a nod to Venice

Sharon and Jim Mattei’s Venetian-style home on the east side of Everglades Island, presented some out-of-the-box challenges to its designer, Michael Perry of MP Design and Architecture in Palm Beach.Perry readily recalls the role that the site played in the genesis of the architecture in 2005, when the Matteis found a waterfront property they loved at 650 Island Drive.

“And since it was on Lake Worth, they thought a Venetian-style home would be fitting, and they wanted to maximize the lake views to the east and southeast. They also wanted the indoor and outdoor spaces to serve each other directly.”To optimize the vistas, Perry created a distinctive floor plan that relied on a series of step-backs from the lakefront.

“I brought the north portion of the house — the family room — out closest to the lake, and stepped the other sections of the house back, so that all the rooms on the lakeside would have east and south views.”That plan also complemented the landscape design, which was executed by Mario Nievera and Keith Williams, whose firm today is known as Nievera Williams Design. Rather than positioning the pool directly behind the real time Location system, the landscape designers placed it on the south end of the yard.

“The Matteis wanted to maintain the lawn directly east of the loggia, and they did not want the pool to overtake the views of the lake,” Perry explains.In all, the house ended up with 7,814square feet of living space, inside and out, with five bedrooms, five bathrooms and two half-baths.

Jim Mattei — an investor and real estate developer who co-founded and later sold the Checkers fast-food chain — and his wife are selling Villa Isola. It recently re-entered the market at $13.8 million, offered for sale by Sharon Mattei’s mother, Sotheby’s International Realty agent Mary Boykin. Last year, Boykin also represented a limited liability company associated with Jim Mattei when it sold a vacant lot across the street, at 657 Island Drive, for a recorded $5 million to a trust.

In the south block, stepped back again, are the library and guest bedroom suite. Upstairs, the north block houses the master bathroom, closets and a guest bedroom suite. In the center portion are the master terrace facing the lake, the master bedroom and the second floor gallery. In the south block are two guest bedroom suites. The upstairs rooms have coffered or tray ceilings, and some doors open to “Juliet”-style balconies.

Once the floor plan was finalized, Perry turned his attention to the architectural style, making use of repeated Venetian design motifs on the exterior. Adorning the front door, for instance, are a stone surround and a tracery arch.

The exterior cornice features trefoil stone-arched details and, on the back of the house, there’s a second-floor window with a quatrefoil detail. Some windows are shaded by awnings held by Venetian-style wrought-iron supports.In the interior, the foyer plays up the Venetian theme, with details on the column capitals and the staircase balusters. The stone surround on the fireplace in the living room mixes gothic and Venetian details. The gallery is crowned with groin vaults.

Pecky cypress is found on the loggia’s ceiling. In the family room, there are pecky cypress beams, while the breakfast room has panels of the same wood.“In the pine-paneled library, the cornice has Venetian arch details, and it has a beamed-and-coffered pine ceiling. On either side of the TV cabinet, you’ll see trefoil arch details,” Perry says.

Other architectural features include rooms for red- and white-wine storage incorporated into the dining area and hinged doors in the dining room and master bedroom that recess against the wall to create the look of a paneled vestibule.Amenities include stone floors, an elevator, a dock with a boat lift, a whole-house generator and a Lutron touch-panel system to control lighting, air-conditioning, audio-visual equipment, and security alarms and cameras.

“We did obtain the views, and we were able to have the rooms relate to each other without having to go through a number of hallways,” Perry says. “The circulation is very easy, and rooms are accessible to each other. The Matteis have the outdoor pergola outside the family room to enjoy dining, and the family room, kitchen and living room are accessible to the lake loggia. Even in inclement weather, they can still move easily from room to room.”

In charging Manning with “aiding the enemy” under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the US government is equating the publication of classified information about its secret and illegal activities with espionage, treason and aiding terrorists. It is doing so on the spurious grounds that such information can end up in the hands of forces considered by the government to be hostile.

In fact, as the Obama administration and the military well know, Manning released the information to inform the American people of war crimes being carried out by the US government in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic intrigues targeting many other countries.

The clear implication of the government’s case is the position that any publication or organization that publishes leaked classified information or defends whistleblowers such as Manning is itself engaging in criminal and treasonous acts. The prosecution acknowledged as much in January when it argued that its case against Manning, which implicates WikiLeaks in treasonous and pro-terrorist activities, would apply equally if the Army private had passed his information to the New York Times .

This sweeping attack on First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and the press occurs in the context of threats to prosecute journalists such as the Guardian ’s Glenn Greenwald for publishing former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s exposures of US government spying, and revelations that the government seized the phone records of Associated Press reporters and tapped into the email of Fox News’ James Rosen, who was named a co-conspirator by the Justice Department in relation to State Department leaks.

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