By Donna Andrews Russell
Located a little more than 70 miles from Louisville and split between Breckinridge and Grayson counties, 5,100-acre Rough River Lake has drawn water-loving Louisvillians since its completion in 1961. It was on its cliffy shores that local attorney Larry Franklin, a retired Navy two-star admiral, decided to drop anchor 18 years ago by purchasing a small hillside cabin about 100 yards off the water.
Last year, with the help of J. Victor Interiors’ Victor Saho, Foster Brothers Construction’s Doug Foster and a host of Louisville-area subcontractors, Franklin and his wife Judy transformed the rustic dwelling into a luxurious lake house with four bedrooms and three full baths. The metamorphosis started as a simple kitchen remodel and mushroomed from there, Judy recalls. "First it was the kitchen, then it was widening the deck, then adding an outdoor kitchen because I wanted a grill and couldn’t have one at our condo in Louisville."
By the time the work was completed, nothing, inside or out, was left untouched. "It’s gorgeous!" Foster says of the finished project. "It has every bell and whistle you could ask for and more comforts than most homes, from towel warmers in all the bathrooms to a Sub-Zero refrigerator in the kitchen."
The mirrored walls and ceiling of the lower-level guest bedroom. 
The lower level’s "metropolitan Barbara Barry flavor."
On the exterior, Saho chose Benjamin Moore’s Gredge — a greenish brown — for the cedar siding, accented by rich Onyx Black shutters, doors and windows. "The color helps the cabin bl/files/storyimages/in with its surroundings and provides a backdrop for collectibles, such as the fountain and Inuit totem pole on the main level deck," Saho explains.
That deck was widened and now features low-maintenance Trex flooring and balusters (made from a bl/files/storyimages/of reclaimed wood and plastic), DecKorators Architectural Series aluminum spindles, a circular staircase leading down to the new lower-level porch, a Venetian-style chiminea, a hot tub beneath a protective pagoda, and an electronic awning for shade on sultry afternoons. Made by Turner Awning, the remote-controlled canopy also retracts automatically when winds reach potentially damaging levels.
The kitchen renovation was extensive. A subscriber to Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Food Arts and Cooking Light magazines and a veteran of several food and wine courses at the celebrated Blackberry Farm resort in Walland, Tenn., Judy wanted a kitchen that would allow her to prepare gourmet food. "There aren’t many restaurants around here," she observes. Designer Ken Fromme of Miller’s Fancy Bath & Kitchen managed to fit a Wolf electric cooktop; GE Advantium and Tivection ovens; warming drawer; dishwasher; and Sub-Zero side-by-side refrigerator and wine cooler into the small space. German beech cabinets are accented by rustic solid bronze pulls from Rocky Mountain Hardware. Cream-colored limestone from Utah’s Green River Stone was used for the contrasting backsplash, and a fossilized turtle provides a focal point over the cooktop. Another nice touch: the extra-wide and -deep copper sink with its decorative basket-weave apron.
The stone walls of the outdoor kitchen and the main-floor deck.
The Franklins and their Inuit totem pole, purchased in British Columbia.
A large island with a Terra Brazil granite top separates the kitchen from the living room, providing not only work and serving space, but extra seating — important for a week/files/storyimages/getaway, where large groups of people are partying in a relatively small area. "The island has actually become part of the living room," Saho says. "People can sit at it and comfortably watch the TV over the fireplace."
The second-floor master suite’s sitting room has an antique oak fireplace mantel and beamed ceiling.
The master suite’s candlelit two-person whirlpool tub.
On the second floor, the Franklins gained a private sitting area off the master bedroom by doing away with the original vaulted ceiling in the kitchen and living room below. A dormer added to the bath created space for a two-person hot tub, bidet and old-fashioned pull-chain toilet. Saho chose to keep the dressing-area vanity in its original position outside the bath because "the plumbing was already there."
The lower level received heated travertine flooring, a built-in bar, an electric fireplace, an Amerec cedar sauna, a full bath with a shower and step-down whirlpool, and a private covered porch. A windowless storage room was converted to a bedroom by mirroring the walls and ceiling. While people joke about the mirrors, Larry says the bedroom has been a big hit with guests. "People request it when they come to stay because it’s very private and they have almost everything they need on a single floor," he says. "Plus, the view is always changing."
Each of the home’s three floors is decorated in a different style. The main floor is cozy English country, the second-floor master suite has a Tommy Bahama feel and the lower level has a "metropolitan Barbara Barry flavor," Saho notes. "What ties everything together is the color scheme — a combination of olive green, Chinese red and gold."
The main level’s combination kitchen and sitting room, separated by a granite-top island/table.
The lower level has lots of cozy seating.
Saho used several decorating tricks to make the home seem larger. Wall-mounted flat-screen TVs, for example, are space savers. In the bedrooms, the sets have built-in DVD players, making equipment cabinets unnecessary, and in the sitting areas the televisions are incorporated into electric fireplaces. The golden drag-and-rag faux finish on the stucco walls adds a feeling of volume, while finishing the oak-plank floors and cabinets on the first and second levels in the same walnut brown as the woodwork provides pleasing continuity. Scale was also an important consideration for the furnishings. "In the sitting areas, I used love seats instead of couches," Saho says, "because the rooms weren’t large enough to accept big furniture."
Larry’s 33 years of experience on ships and submarines is evident in the efficient use of space. For instance, the kitchen cabinet toe-kicks hold slide-out drawers. Stacking the washer and dryer slightly off-center in a closet left a spot for laundry soap. Finishing the second-floor eaves created additional hidden storage upstairs. Space beneath the main-level deck was used to add a storage room for boating equipment, extra bedding, a full-sized freezer, second refrigerator and utilities. Finally, equipment lockers at each of the home’s three boat slips eliminate the need to lug gear up and down the hill each time the Franklins cast off in their Sea Ray cruiser, pontoon boat or WaveRunners.
Displaying Larry’s fascination with gadgets, the home is fully equipped with state-of-the-art audio, video and security systems, all operated by simple-to-use touch-screen pads and accessible through the Internet. Other high-tech features include remote-controlled Phantom Screens on the lower-level porch; zoned heating in the lower level’s stone floor, which allows guests to set different temperatures in the bedroom, bath and sitting areas; wind-up radios in all the bedrooms in the event of power outages; and even a portable emergency defibrillator.
While it was Judy’s idea to add an outdoor kitchen for hot-off-the-grill steaks, it was Larry who determined its commanding position on the hillside overlooking the lake. "It’s like standing on the bridge of a ship," the former naval commander says with satisfaction.
