Fabulous Faux

The great room fireplace, one of five in the home, provides another example of Chateau Cool Stone’s artistry. This fireplace features a combination of imported marble, granite and hand-carved limestone.

The hand-carved limestone on both the inside and out of this Renaissance-style home allowed Pedersen to transform her dream home into a physical reality and still stay within budget, she says. Rather than importing costly limestone blocks, Pedersen relied on a process that creates "new" limestone developed by Chateau Cool Stone. The Pleasanton, Calif.-based company specializes in reproducing authentic European architecture using a process they’ve developed for reconstituting powdered limestone. This mixture is hand-troweled or pneumatically applied onto a pre-prepared surface.

While still soft, the new stone surface can be finished in a variety of ways or can be hand-carved by one of the company’s craftsmen.

The involvement of Chateau Cool Stone was critical to the success of this project, according to Pedersen. "We wanted to create a home that looked as though it cost two to three times as much as it cost to build," she says.

According to John Krisman, Chateau Cool Stone co-partner, their process adds a high degree of perceived value to a home. "This particular project represents the some of the best work that we’ve done," he says.

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