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At Home with Craig Jackson
By Kimberly Hundley. Photography by Andrew Grant
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For more information on the photography, visit <a href="http://www.andrewgrantphoto.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Andrew Grant Photography</strong></a>
Craig Jackson's perch is among the most spectacular properties dotting the hills of Paradise Valley-six acres graced with curving glass walls, and jaw-dropping views of Mummy and Camelback mountains. A custom motorcycle serves as the living-room centerpiece, befitting Jackson's status as the CEO of the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, a world-class car event. (Mark your calendar for Jan. 12-20, 2008 to attend the 37th annual at WestWorld.)
Sleek, reflective twists and turns define the entire home's structure and decor. You'd think the place had been made for him. It wasn't. Almost three years ago, Jackson had been house hunting in Paradise Valley far below the hillcrest, and none too happy about the prospect of neighbors looking into his backyard. The glinting aerie caught his eye. "Now that's a house," he told his Realtor. "That thing's gotta cost a fortune."
Ignoring his price tag protestations, Jackson's Realtor dragged him up the street and through the home's colossal zebrawood door for a tour.
"I got to about there," Jackson says, and points to the staircase 15 feet from the entry, "and I knew I was going to buy it."
The house was built in 1991, selling at the time for $6.25 million. Jackson nearly remodeled before moving in, but the original lighting designer Walter Spitz talked him out of it. "Let the house talk to you for a year," Spitz advised, "then decide what you want to do." In the following months, a bevy of design experts marched through the overwhelmingly cream-colored and marbled rooms, concurring the interior was out of date, and should be purged for a fresh start. But Jackson realized he "kind of liked" the blonde wood and shining surfaces.
"When I moved in, all I did was buy a couch and throw my artwork on the walls," he says. "In the remodel, I'm going to warm it up and update it-add some more masculine colors, put a bigger bed in the master, and that's about it." Plans call for beaded wallpaper in dusky maroon and champagne hues, and a refinishing of the lacquered mantels and other blonde-wood features to restore luster.
Jackson has also hired the home's original architect to oversee the addition of 9,000 square feet to the existing 10,500. A sky bridge will arch over the driveway and connect to a rotunda abutting the granite-and-quartz ridgeline that cuts through the property. Built in the style of an old-fashioned library, the rotunda will house a two-bedroom guest suite, a second set of garages (the first one fits only five cars, two on lifts), and a show garage.
"My office will be on the top floor, looking into the rotunda and over the whole Valley," Jackson says.
Clearly a man who loves his house and planning for its future, Barrett has compiled a book of pictures torn from magazines showcasing the various color, accent and furniture elements he'd like to eventually include.
Gazing through his wall of windows, through the yucca spikes and clusters of golden barrel and totem cactus, Jackson admits to a belief in the power of feng shui.
"Whenever I'm up here," he says, "I'm in a good mood."
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