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photo by Joel Testa
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photo by Joel Testa
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photo by Joel Testa
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photo by Joel Testa
Joel Testa wants to be Iron Man when he grows up.
It’s a common dream for many kids. But Joel’s an adult. “I think the movie character was actually created after me,” he says with a wink.
And judging from his home, he appears to have realized that dream. The lower level alone of his 8,500-square-foot Silver Lake home bears more than a passing resemblance to Tony Stark’s high-tech residence. And like Stark, Joel too is a big-time entrepreneur. He operates several companies encompassing construction, architecture, property management, real estate and dining including his namesake Testa Cos.
There are high-powered sports vehicles — a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and a Ducati motorcycle — in a lower-level showroom. There’s a sumptuous theater with a 16-foot screen, cushy recliners and surround sound. There are even a couple full-size replica Iron Man suits on display. And outside the theater, there’s a light-up Marvel marquee, a red carpet lined by red velvet ropes, a snack bar with a popcorn machine, a ticket window, life-size Spider-Man, StormTrooper and Bumblebee Transformers suits and a nine-seat marble-topped bar, where Joel can indulge as well as host guests for the ultimate VIP theater experience.
It all connects to the showroom that also has a mogul-worthy desk and mounted guitars as well as three oversized glass doors and a nano wall of folding glass doors that opens to a backyard overlooking scenic Silver Lake — making it an enviable man cave.
“[It's] the best place in the house,” he says.
Joel, his wife, Cassie, and their children, Zoe, Giovanni and Sofia, moved into the home built by Testa Builders in September 2021. (Cassie gave birth to their fourth child, Malia, shortly after). Their goal was a traditional one: A move to bring them closer to relatives and a spot for them to raise their family. The house’s modern farmhouse exterior, with white stone and board-and-batten siding, black carriage house doors and a black metal roof, fits in with other houses on the road, many of which are prewar vintage. But inside, the home gives free rein to the Testas’ modernist tendencies while making it a gathering place.
“We want this to be the place where kids bring their friends to hang out,” Cassie says. “I think we’ve done that.”
Joel bought the property from his parents. The couple got a good offer to rent their downtown Akron loft where they previously lived (They would like to return to it as their empty nest home.), so they rented elsewhere during construction. That took about 8 months and involved a lot of changes to the landscaping, creating a backyard while honoring the village’s riparian setback requirements about building back from the lake.
photo by Joel Testa
photo by Joel Testa
photo by Joel Testa
photo by Joel Testa
photo by Joel Testa
“We had to strategically fit this house into the site,” Joel says.
You can’t argue with the results. The open floor plan on the main floor includes a 29-by-18-foot great room and 23-by-16-foot kitchen. There’s an eight-burner stove with a quartz-and-glass backsplash, and a massive 11-by-6 1/2-foot kitchen island, which can accommodate 12 people comfortably. Most family meals are eaten around the island, and although the kitchen countertops are granite, the island’s countertop is quartz, which Joel says is becoming the predominant kitchen surface.
“It’s manmade, so it’s controllable,” he says. “It’s antimicrobial and it doesn’t stain. It’s far lower maintenance than granite.”
The original design of the main floor was flipped, Joel says, to afford better lake views from the great room that has two-story-tall picture windows, a white concrete fireplace, a custom player piano with a digital hookup and a walkout waterfront porch. As a result, the kitchen was bigger than originally intended and features a walk-in pantry and butler’s kitchen area.
There’s also a formal 12-person dining room, which the Testas use less frequently, that has a window into the front yard at one end, and a glass-encased wine room at the other. The dining room features a dark accent wall. The Testas flipped the script from their loft’s darker black, white and gray color scheme.
“We wanted to brighten up this house, so we did white as the base color,” Joel says. “We have some accent walls. We wanted to keep it as fresh and light and clean as you think a lake house should be.”
The home maximizes available space with pocket doors, from the in-law suite on the main floor to a pocket dog gate between the dining room and mudroom. Upstairs are four bedrooms for the children. Each pair of bedrooms features a Jack-and-Jill bathroom, with two separate vanities and a shared shower and toilet area.
The main suite includes a full bathroom, as well as a small balcony with seating overlooking the lake. And there’s a large playroom, with toys from a kitchen playset to a video game system to accommodate each child — not an easy task with their ages ranging from high schooler to toddler. “My favorite part is the trampoline,” says Sofia.
But the play area is a work in progress, Joel says. The plan is to create a playscape that looks like its own town. It’s an ambitious project, but Joel is more than up to the task.
“My brain’s going a million miles an hour,” he says. “I always need the next challenge.”
Spoken like a superhero.
