Posted on Feb 28, 2016 in
COVER STORY
The Goff’s new home was featured in the 2015 CASA Christmas Holiday Tour benefitting legal advocacy for a children, a cause dear to both Doug and Susie. Photo by Larry Pullen.
FOCUS COVER STORY | By Trish Johnson –
In Doug and Susie Goff’s lives, everything from philanthropy to the design and décor of their new home in Imperial Sugar Land must be glamorous, glitzy and over-the-top.
“Glitzy, that’s me! The grandkids even call me ‘Glitzy,’ as in ‘Glitzy Grandma,’ ” laughed Susie Goff during a recent tour of her home. “I would describe my personal style as pretty eclectic, whimsical, eccentric.”
Never one-dimensional, the Goff’s three bedroom, 3,600 square foot home sparkles with crisp whites, floor to ceiling. “No brown came into this house,” Goff said. “Not even tan, beige or any other color brown. We wanted it very open and with lots of light. Plus, I can change at a whim.”
From zebra print carpet to wine corks on the ceiling, Goff and her husband, Doug, reside in a home filled with innovative ideas and splashes of color. The aqua water of the swimming pool, seen through luxuriously wide doors opening to an outside living and entertainment area, is echoed in stylishly boxy chairs in the living room and sitting area.
Now grandparents with four grandchildren, Susie, or “Glitzy,” as the grandchildren call her, designed a room where the kids can play and visit. Photo by Steve Chenn.
“Without hesitation, Doug says the big doors opening to the patio are his favorite feature in the house,” shared Goff. “For me, it’s the openness of the house. It’s fine for the two of us, but we can entertain here. We’ve had 300 people here at one time. And when we open those doors, we have another 2,000 square feet of living and entertaining area outside.”
The spectacular view from the patio includes the 1925 Imperial Sugar Char House and Constellation Field, where the Sugar Land Skeeters play. “We have chairs on the patio placed so we can see the fireworks from Constellation Field when the Skeeters play.”
The aqua color continues in the bedroom designed for the Goff’s four grandchildren, as well as the walls of the guest room, which features the aforementioned zebra print underfoot. “I did 90% of it myself,” Goff said of the home’s décor. “After consulting with a couple of designers, I didn’t think anyone was as whimsical or glitzy as me.
“We were really hands-on building the house,” she continued. “We only lived about five minutes away, so we were here almost every day. We had so much fun building it.”
A huge master bedroom closet is a result of the couple’s experience living in what Goff calls “Doug’s bachelor pad” after the couple married eight years ago. “We couldn’t find half of our clothes,” she laughed. “They wouldn’t fit in the closet and so we had them stuck everywhere. I didn’t know where our clothes were. I had clothes I didn’t remember until we moved here and unpacked. We told our builder, ‘Make the closet pretty big, then add a few more feet, and make it bigger.’ ”
The Goff’s expansive covered patio overlooks not only a beautiful, custom built pool but the Imperial Sugar Char House and Constellation Field. Photo by Larry Pullen.
Accentuating the ceiling of the bar next to the chef’s kitchen – Doug is the chef in the family – are a multitude of wine bottle corks collected by the couple. “We asked for wine bottle corks at every restaurant we went to,” Goff said, laughing. “We even bugged our friends to help us collect corks. We had them placed on the ceiling by Congressman Pete Olson’s 15-year-old son, Grant, who is 6’10” tall. He has a talent for cork,” Goff slyly added. There are over 25,000 corks adorning the ceiling.
Perhaps the centerpiece of the house is the dining room, where a life-sized mural of the Goffs, their friends, their dog, a poodle-mix named Scooter, and their dog’s best friend overlooks an area large enough for two dining tables. “We were in a restaurant called Rocco’s in Austin,” Goff recalled, “and they had a mural on one wall of people just having fun. We both looked at it and said, ‘We have to have a mural like it.’ We tracked down the artist, who turned out to be from Austin but was now living in California.”
According to Goff, the couple sent photos of everyone to the self-styled His Highness Duke Michael Peschke, who according to Goff is “quite the character.” He turned the photos into a gloriously fun mural on the dining room wall.
The closet, fit for a king and queen, features regal purple lacquer drawers and walls and crystal chandeliers. Photo by Steve Chenn.
“We were so happy with the result, we had a grand unveiling,” Goff chuckled. “No one knew what it looked like, no one had seen it, and we had everyone wear the clothes they are wearing on the mural. We had the best time.”
The patio home was featured in 2015’s CASA Christmas Home Tour, an event benefitting the national Court Appointed Special Advocate Association (CASA), an organization dear to the hearts of both the Goffs. “They provide children with a voice,” Goff explained. “We are big supporters. They asked us last March, about the time we moved in, if we would be interested in putting the house on the tour. I told them we would be honored.”
Among other organizations benefitting from the Goff’s considerable largesse – in both funds and time – are The Children’s Museum, Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation and Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital.
“Our home is a joint effort by Doug and I,” said Goff. “We waited two years while the house was in the planning stage, but we never considered living anywhere but Fort Bend County and Imperial Sugar Land. It was never even up for discussion. Fort Bend County is where Doug lived, and he said this just looks like us.”
The Goff’s hired artist His Highness Duke Michael Peschke after seeing his work in an Austin restaurant to create a custom mural in their dining room featuring themselves and friends. Photo by Larry Pullen.
Committed to Community
The commitment to Fort Bend County by W. Douglas “Doug” Goff and his wife, Susie, goes back more than 20 years to when Doug, serving as General Manager of Sienna Plantation, turned the 7,000 acre master-planned community in Fort Bend County into one of the top-selling communities in the United States. Even earlier, Doug – as General Manager of Markborough Development – was instrumental in the turnaround of New Territory, a 3,500 acre community also in Fort Bend County.
Now, as Chief Operating Office of The Johnson Development Corp., Doug oversees the company’s portfolio of communities. Doug’s wife, Susie, retired from an award-winning marketing career at The Johnson Development Corp., now spends her time on the couple’s philanthropic efforts as well as their family, which includes three sons from previous marriages, two daughters-in-law and four grandchildren.
A closeted decorator at heart, Susie’s holiday decorating efforts in the couple’s new Imperial Sugar Land home are mainly responsible for the home’s inclusion in the 2015 CASA Christmas Holiday Tour benefitting legal advocacy for children. “I decorate for all of the holidays,” Susie admitted. “My favorite holiday is the one that’s next.”
Built by Partners in Building in 2015 in Imperial Sugar Land, the Goff home serves as home base for a couple who entertain with the same passion they bring to their philanthropy. “We love it here,” Susie said, explaining their decision to stay in Sugar Land and Fort Bend County. “There was never any question about where we wanted to live. Sugar Land is our home.”
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