Above and Beyond
One of the most spectacular new homes in Montgomery County bears the distinctive fingerprints of Triumph Building Group.
Everyone has a so-called “bucket list” of things they hope to accomplish before they die. Nick Della Vecchia recently checked off a major item on his list: moving into the dream home he had designed, refined, and custom built by some of the area’s most skilled artisans.
As an entrepreneur who runs a successful scrap-metal business in Philadelphia, Della Vecchia was living with his wife at a modest home in Dresher when they decided to start a family. From that point forward, he decided to make the leap and build what he considered his ideal home. He wanted this custom home to be elegant yet comfortable, serving a place where his children could grow up happily and also give him and his wife the ability to entertain in superior style.
“I had exactly what I wanted in my head,” he says, “but spatially I didn’t know what size it should be.”
He envisioned a clean, modern interior with plenty of lighting and windows offering spectacular views of the grounds, and an exterior with a “Mediterranean feel” not typically associated with the Greater Philadelphia Area. After identifying where he wanted to have the home built—a 5.5-acre lot that provided both accessibility and privacy, near a prominent intersection in Horsham—he then went about finding the right team to turn his vision into a reality. Enter OMNIA Group Architects and Triumph Building Group.
“Every client comes to a building project with ideas, but not every client comes to it with the level of ideas that Nick had,” says Brian Mann, founding partner of OMNIA Group Architects in Hatboro. “He and his wife had a sense of style that was very well defined. One of the challenges of designing a home like this was to make it suitable for formal entertaining and still have it be intimate for day-to-day use so [the homeowners] and their kids didn’t feel like they were living in a museum. You’re also taking all the different aspects of the home and knitting them together so they seem like one integrated, flowing space.
“As architects, we also have to be jacks-of-all-trades,” he continues. “We have to know about everything—roofing, lumber, carpet, steel, door handles—but our team approach enables us to bring in other people who specialize in all these different areas. Converge is a word I like to use, because all these things have to come together. It doesn’t just pour itself onto the page.”
When it came time to select the builder of this would-be masterpiece, Mann had a lot of options from which to choose. Based partly on gut instinct and partly on measured analysis, he recommended Triumph Building Group in Newtown, a full-service firm led by partners Brad Bauernshub, Chris Pinto, and Theresa Nardone.
“When you’re thinking about someone to build a house like this, it’s not just about sheer size; it’s size, but it’s also the complexity and craft that it demands,” Mann adds. “Not every builder can pull that off. It struck us that Chris and Triumph Building Group had the flexibility and temperament and capability that made them right for this job. … I also had a good sense that Nick and Chris would be a good fit.”
He was right. Construction got underway in 2017 and concluded in the spring of 2018, with continual refinements made along the way. From the roof down to the foundation, Triumph Building Group provided a remarkable level of detail, precision, and customization. On the roof, for example, the company chose a composite roofing tile to mimic terracotta roof shingles, of which Della Vecchia was particularly fond. This highly durable option provided a similar look and feel, but without the excessive weight and structural requirements of terracotta.
Other highlights include a sunken home-theater room, an outdoor kitchen and patio, two in-home bars, and two travertine decks—one off the first floor, and another off the second—as well as breathtakingly detailed grand foyer and a semi-circular breakfast room as an extension of the kitchen. (Anyone interested in seeing more of the home in exquisite detail can take an interactive tour by visiting Triumph Building Group’s website, TriumphBG.com.) Pinto likes to refer to the 8,100-square-foot, 24-room home as “an entertainer’s dream.”
“The whole project was a collaboration from the very beginning,” he says. “When you’re working together with the homeowner, you have to be honest and realistic, and be willing to say, ‘We can do this, but we can’t do this.’ Your goal is to build the house of the homeowner’s dreams according to their budget. What I think is unique about our firm is that we’re small and agile, and we can do pretty much anything a client needs. We’re a full-service building group, so we can help with just about any aspect of the process, not only building a new home but also selling your current home, helping you find land, and arranging financing through a proper banking facility.”
Della Vecchia and his family moved into their Triumph-built home toward the end of May, and he says they couldn’t be happier. He still talks with Pinto often; in fact, he now considers the two to be good friends.
“We love the house,” he adds. “I would say it’s 100 percent exactly the way we wanted it. What I had envisioned for the house just came out of my head on paper, and the little insights that Chris and Brian gave along the way made it perfect. … I can’t take many vacations because of the business, so it’s a nice place to come home to. I’m looking forward to having a lot of events there as the kids grow up.”
Triumph Building Group
2324 Second Street Pike, Suite 20
Newtown, Pa.
(267) 394-0284
Photography courtesy of Triumph Building Group
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Life Magazine, October 2018.
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