Editor's note: Coming Saturday, The Sun introduces a new home design section. This is the centerpiece of the first print edition.
There's a suspicious dearth of chrome, not a lick of black leather and the place is utterly without a bar. Not one wall — and there are quite a few — is holding up, Atlas-style, an intimidating fortress of electronic equipment.
Bob Bowman's new home, at least on paper, is a bachelor pad. But the truth is, the swim coach famous for leading Michael Phelps to Olympic gold has worked hard to make the house he built on 37 acres off a winding Monkton road feel warm, livable and very, very real.
"When you're young, you have a bachelor pad. When you're an adult, you have a home," says Bowman, who's 45. "The goal of this home is to be a place where I can come to recharge my batteries and a place to get myself ready for my life, which is pretty hectic.
"It's an oasis."
And as oases go, this one is purposely dry.
Though one might imagine a man famous for his work at pools would have quite a nice one. But Bowman isn't one to bring the office home. The closest he'll go is a jetted soaking tub in the master bathroom. He can't do laps, but the coach can sink into it after a long day of stopwatches and whistles.
Bowman moved from Ruxton into the home in September. He'd bought the pastoral lot in 2008 and spent about a year building a house that even at 3,800 square feet, manages a certain coziness.
At first he thought of building a log cabin there at the foot of the woods, but with the help of Baltimore design pros Foster Knott, who also decorated the homes of Phelps and fellow Olympian Katie Hoff, Bowman realized he didn't want dark, limiting logs — he wanted to feel as if he was living in a light-filled forest, but with niceties, like the oiled bronzed appliances he spotted on HGTV. Agrarian chic, one might call it.
"I wanted comfortable and kind of rustic but I wanted to have some style," says Bowman, a jeans and T-shirt guy who, nonetheless, plays piano, grows his own herbs and dreams about owning horses. "I think that really reflects me."
The home's soul is its great room, where a majestic hearth crafted of local Butler stone rises two stories to meet a timber ceiling, pine beams shaped by Amish hands. Polished mahogany floors anchor it all, reaching across the first level from the living room, through the kitchen and into the dining room and guest area.
The expansive porch that wraps three sides of the house has come in handy for entertaining, with its outdoor fireplace and screened-in dining room, from where one can see deer peeking from the forest and, if the conversation stalls, hear breezes rustling the leaves. Bowman's guests have sipped Prosecco in the conversation area around the fire, while inside, he put the finishing touches on a Tuscan roasted chicken.
Though the essence of the home, like its owner, is easygoing and earthy, the truly personal touches aren't necessarily overt. A visitor might eventually notice the would-be horseman's framed news photos of famous colts winning the Preakness. Or, that the man who shaves seconds by trade has collected art with the theme of clocks. And of course there's the print that hangs in the stairway landing called "Eight Chinese Immortals."
If not for eight immortal swims in Beijing, Bowman jokes, he might not have the house to hang it.
In Bowman's home office, snapshots of his bathing-suited clients crowd his desk. But in the main living space, there's just one. Framed but very small, it rests on a corner of the entertainment table in the great room. Coach and star protege, beaming together at the Sydney Olympics. "He was just 15 then," Bowman says "It was kind of the beginning of this whole journey."