Spaces
Moore to Love
Located on the outskirts of West Plains, the Moore home combines traditional architecture with timeless décor and a little Colonial charm.
By Ettie Berneking | Photos by Jeremy Mason McGraw
Jun 2013
Place to Call Home
Located near West Plains, Beverly and Brock Moore’s home was a custom build from the ground up. Over the years, the house has gone through a series of facelifts and remodels. Its most recent spruce-up gave it a classic colonial look.
After Beverly Moore transplanted her born-and-raised country boy husband, Brock, to the cookie-cutter streets of suburbia, it wasn’t long before the two were yearning for more room to stretch their legs. When the opportunity arose to purchase 10 acres of undeveloped land near West Plains, the couple quickly began drawing up blueprints for their new home.
Brock’s dad is a builder, and Beverly owns her own interior design company, Interiors by Design (417-257-0616), so the project was a total custom build. Working from the ground up, the Moores slowly started constructing the house, keeping with their desired Colonial style. “We wanted the house to be timeless,” Beverly says. “The Colonial style has been around for hundreds of years without ever falling out of style.”
First finishing the house in 1996, Brock and Beverly tried to shy away from trendy designs and color schemes in hopes of limiting the number of remodels, but a few years later, Beverly was already tiring of the crème- and green-colored façade. “As much as I’ve tried not to, I’ve done remodels,” she says. From the breakfast nook to the front porch, the Moore house has undergone many facelifts, and it finally shed its green and crème palette for a more traditional look five years ago.
The addition of the massive front columns and stone siding gave the house the Colonial look that Beverly wanted, and on the inside, Beverly put her decorating talents to work. Spending most of her days lost in a whirlwind of paint samples, fabric swatches and magazine clippings, Beverly designed the interior of the home to be cozy and calm. But she also wanted each room to be inviting in order to fit the family’s busy entertaining schedule. The result is the ultimate blend of comfort and style.
A Classic Palette
Throughout the house, Beverly uses neutral tones to create a calm and tranquil atmosphere. The living room is a great example of how Beverly uses black accents to make the color of the couches and walls stand out. “I love colors,” she says. “And I love to do other people’s homes in color. But because my days are so busy, I like to come home and have soft, calming colors.”
A Master Suite
The master bedroom is one of Beverly’s favorite places to curl up and watch a TV show without having to fight Brock for the remote. The enormous sleigh bed is plenty comfortable, and Beverly even added a touch of color to brighten her cozy getaway. The bedroom used to have thick white carpet, but when the room was remodeled, the Moores traded in the carpet for distressed wood floors. Beverly’s friend Deanna, who helps Beverly with her design business, helped the Moores distress the tongue-and-groove floors.
Breakfast Hideaway
The breakfast nook creates a cozy space to enjoy a cup of coffee while watching the kids swim. The nook is one of the rooms Beverly recently redid, and as part of the remodel, she ordered the massive clock that now hangs on the right wall. Beverly has a thing for oversized clocks, with many other massive timepieces peppered throughout the house. This particular clock is four feet in diameter and reads “Moore, established in 1988”—the year Beverly and her husband got married. This seems like the perfect way to keep her husband from forgetting their anniversary, but Beverly jokes that she’s the one who always forgets the big day. “It needs to have an alarm,” she says.
Repurposed Stone
After updating the front of the house, the Moores used leftover stone to construct an outdoor fireplace. “The exterior of the house has an Old World finish with sloppy grout work, but for the fireplace, we wanted a cleaner look,” Moore says. The gas fireplace is the perfect spot for the Moores to gather on cool summer nights.
Poolside Retreat
The pool area was added two years ago and has become a favorite place to relax and enjoy meals during the summer. It has also become a gathering place for the Moore family and friends. Beverly likes to joke that Brock didn’t want a pool for a long time, and it was only because he fell in love with the idea of having a hammock that he ever agreed to having a pool. “I said, ‘It’s silly to have a hammock and nothing else in the backyard,’” Beverly says. “So I said, ‘A pool would make it better.’” And Brock okayed the plan. Now Beverly has her pool, Brock has his hammock, and the family has a cozy, outdoor retreat. And because the pool is heated, the kids can take a dip, even when it’s still cold outside.
