Spending two years at sea on their catamaran, “The Amazing Marvin,” gave Greg and Melinda Burnett a love for nature and light – especially sunsets. They took this vision and brought it life, building a home in an Omaha neighborhood that gives them endless, bright daylight and an unobstructed view of Nebraska’s golden-hour skies.

Their home, completed in November 2020, sits on a trapezoidal lot in the Broadmoor Heights addition to the Golden Valley neighborhood, built in the early 1950s. They leveled a ranch house and replaced it with a two-story modern marvel that stands out among its peers.

Passersby traversing the intersection of 88th Street and Edgevale Plaza find a sky-high and structured tower, rising just under 32 feet – a height threshold posed by Omaha regulations. This tower, a true focal point to the front of the house, beams with multicolored LEDs after dark. The tower can confuse the unaware. The home itself is often confused for the front of an apartment building.

The exterior is covered in 1.5-inch-thick stucco for look and durability – another choice inspired by their adventures abroad. On their trips through Mediterranean waters, the Burnetts saw surprisingly durable stucco buildings along the shorelines of Spain, Italy and Greece. “That stucco is hundreds of years old, and it’s still doing well,” Greg said. Stucco on many American homes is a thin layer and less enduring, but this is not true of the Burnett home. It took a three-man crew nine months to apply stucco in layers, all while keeping the expansion joints in line.

The Burnetts wanted to give the architect, Steven Ginn of Omaha, a blank canvas facing the street on which to design something beautiful, without a garage and front porch drawing all the attention. There is a rhythm to the arrangement of windows and stucco joints along the front, street-facing wall, Ginn said. Placement of the home’s windows was strategic. The multitude of large, open windows throughout their home is reminiscent of the wrap-around portals on their catamaran.

“At sea, we were surrounded by windows above the water, so we had good sunlight all the time,” Greg said. “We wanted to re-create that here.”

Several sharp, rectangular windows at the front offer small glimpses inside, or out, while filling the interior of the home with natural light. Equally as unique, the red-accented front door is not visible from the road, something that brings the homeowners a peace of mind, while also removing them from the hustle and bustle of neighborhood traffic. One side benefit of their preference: Those entering the front door are greeted with an uninterrupted 50-foot, straight-line view of evergreen trees outside the kitchen window.

Thanks to a streamlined design, the two hard-working professionals and their children can head straight into a spacious kitchen, dropping off their groceries on the sleek, stone counters. Though at times there were opposing opinions on what direction to take the build, both Steven and the Burnetts agreed on adding a pop of color. They wanted color inside their otherwise back and gray home and because their catamaran was white and “Amazing Marvin” blue, the decision to pick bold blue kitchen cabinets was smooth sailing.

Upstairs is a black ladder, made of 200 pounds of steel with 13 steps straight up to the roof. It’s a climb for those unafraid of heights. Greg took six months designing the ladder, and it took another three months to build. The steps exist at a 3-degree slope toward the wall. Climbers can place their wine glasses in an alcove at the top to free a hand for opening the latched window at the top while keeping their balance with the other. Once at the top, the wide expanse of sunshine and sky encompasses the senses. The Burnetts invite willing guests up the ladder in summer and fall for sunsets and hospitality.

Also, on the top floor there are four bedrooms. One of the sleeping spaces is serving (for now) as a home office, equipped with a Murphy bed. And, of course, each bedroom has at least one window, letting in light.

The home is heated and cooled with help from a geothermal system that involved a drilling crew going 300 feet deep into the Burnett property and installing a 3,000-foot loop of pipe. Fluid in the 1.5-inch pipe circulates through the earth’s constant temperature, 60 degrees. This puts less demand on the heat pump when it’s needed. The Burnetts’ property – two-thirds of an acre and oddly-shaped – required greater depth than would be required for a larger property.

The Burnetts didn’t often host guests on their catamaran, and a walk-through of the home shows that they live their busy dryland lives on the run. When they do entertain, they can choose to host people on the roof, or around the pool. There’s also a lounge adjacent to the kitchen with retractable garage door, to open entertainment to the outside depending on the season.

The rear of the house is fresh and clean with white stucco. A sparkling in-ground pool helps give the couple a taste of the watery-ways they left behind. The roof is almost flat – with a slope of a half inch per foot, to drain rainfall and avoid damage from the freeze-thaw cycle that comes with Nebraska’s hard freezes throughout the year. Solar panels generate 15 kilowatts, making their home energy nearly self-sufficient and powering two hybrid vehicles.

The couple’s catamaran voyage, travels and the eventual home those travels inspired was possible in part to Greg selling his stock in the California company he helped grow – Bluetooth headset innovator Jawbone.

Upon settling back on land, Melinda looked for a job teaching neurology and found one at CHI Health in Omaha. She’s on loan to Creighton University, where she supervises the clerkship program, giving medical students exposure to her specialty. Living in Omaha also put the family close to her parents in southern Missouri.

A Minnesota native, Greg also appreciates that the Big O gets its fair share of sunlight, too. He spent eight years commuting in California, and he sees his new drive as a big improvement. Furthermore, his experience at sea and in the elements convinced him to build a home and create landscaping to take full advantage of Nebraska sunshine, rain and native prairie plants.

 The prairie garden, designed by Benjamin Vogt of Monarch Gardens in Lincoln, includes native Nebraska flora. Perfect for attracting pollinators, what would be a simple grass yard is instead filled with the likes of dotted blazing stars, nodding onions, rattlesnake masters, stiff goldenrods, little bluestem and butterfly weed.

This outdoor space is just another element of the home that ties in pops of color and nature. Upon closer inspection, there is an abundance of purple prairie clover, dwarf blue indigo, prairie coreopsis, wild quinine, round-headed bush clover, sideoats grama and plains oval sedge. It is a contrast to the stark and straight-lined exterior, but it all goes back to a love for sunshine and that which flourishes beneath it.

“I’ve mowed enough faux green lawns in my life,” Burnett said. “I wanted a refuge for mammals, birds, insects, rabbits – a place full of life. In winter, in our prairie, we can be washing dishes and we see robins.” Burnett cuts back the garden just twice a year – for him, that alone makes it better than bluegrass.

Sitting around with a cool drink and watching the tall native plants sway, it’s almost like being back at sea.