irst thing in the morning, Steve Maddox is up shooting basketballs. Sometimes at the end of a hard day, he’ll blow off steam in the indoor court at the new home he built with his wife Shelly.

They’ve worked hard building their business, the Richmond-based Maddox Custom Pools and Landscaping, so when it was time to shift to a smaller home, they wanted it to be for them to enjoy.

Their 4,000-square-foot home isn’t tiny, but it emphasizes public living spaces and the lifestyle they live now as empty nesters. There’s a gym with a Smith machine, free weights, Peloton and an elliptical machine where they can both work out, and it has a wet-dry sauna along with the basketball court where Steve, 59, practices daily.

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Shelly, 53, enjoys animal rescue work, so she has a small room to keep crates for foster animals, with a shower and grooming station where she can clean them up. That room has wallpaper with dogs all over it and a small fire hydrant just for décor. 

The dog shower is made even sweeter with mosaic floor tile laid in the shape of a dog bone. This is where Shelly bathes their 12-year-old Royal Springer spaniel, Blackie, who is king of the house and follows his mom wherever she goes.

Just outside this room is a small dog run with pet-friendly synthetic turf.

Outside, there’s a 60-foot lap pool and a putting green, both of which overlook Oyster Creek. A summer kitchen with seating and dining area can close off with an automated screen and if it’s really hot, they can turn on the air conditioning.

“I’ve played basketball all of my life and I still play full-court twice a week. I use (the basketball court) every day – that’s my place I go after working all day and where I start my day,” said Steve, who grew up in a trailer park and, as a child, set up his own basketball hoop with whatever he could find. “My wife did this for me. I wouldn’t spend that kind of money — an outside one would have been fine for me.”

Steve figures that not everyone would want an indoor basketball court, but anyone who might live in the house in the future could turn that gym into two-story living space.

The couple had been living in a two-story home in Sugar Land's Greatwood neighborhood, where they raised their two sons — Collin, 27, who lives in Houston, and Blake, 22, who lives in Dallas — when they decided to build a new, smaller ranch-style home that would be easier to take care of. 

“We’ve had large homes, two stories, more than 6,000-square-feet and we rarely went upstairs. There was a lot of wasted space and that was not what we wanted this time,” Shelly said. “We don’t want to clean it or pay taxes on it. We wanted to keep it simpler.” 

Instead of focusing on things for children, their focus was on enjoying life themselves — though their sons do love to shoot baskets and practice putting when they visit.

Their home was designed by architect Patrick Berrios and built by Dan Roth Custom Homes of Sugar Land, with Nikole Starr Interiors helping with all of the finishes and furnishings. The Maddoxes, of course, built the pool and handled landscaping.

“We focused on rooms that were gathering rooms — the kitchen, living room and definitely the outside loggia and pool area,” Shelly said. “We wanted to maximize that space and have smaller bedrooms and bathrooms. We maximized the living area where we are most of the day.”

The exterior of their contemporary home is stucco and stone and instead of a long concrete driveway, they went for a more porous option, wide rectangles of concrete with artificial turf in between them. The front lawn is covered in soft, fluffy Palisades Zoysia grass, a popular hybrid developed at Texas A&M University. (Added bonus: the grass is billed as the most drought-tolerant form of zoysia.)

Indoors, the home was finished for a quiet at-home lifestyle. 

While the couple doesn’t cook much, their sons and Shelly’s dad love to cook and make use of the new kitchen.

The island – covered in quartz waterfall-style — can be a place for meal prep work, but with three barstools on each side, it also operates as the kitchen table. The big double-oven range has a black-and-brass range hood custom-designed by Starr, who also chose light fixtures in black matte with touches of brass.

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The Maddoxes don’t entertain a lot, but they do host some family dinners, so they wanted their dining area to be beautiful. They kept the dining table from their prior home, and Starr reupholstered their dining chairs in fresh, new fabric. A textural Hudson Valley chandelier and a new rug and a piece of art finish the understated space.

“I truly believe art enhances a space. It adds to the color story, mood and feel of a room,” Starr said. “The home doesn’t have a lot of wall space, so where we had it, we really wanted to play it up.”

In the living room, split-face stone — quartzite with mica in it for a little sparkle — makes a statement in a wall that holds a large TV over a gas fireplace. A large sectional and a pair of massaging recliners — Shelly’s request, but Steve uses them, too — provide soft comfort. 

Most of the home has luxury vinyl tile that looks like wood flooring, a material that Starr said is gaining in popularity. Many of the homeowners she works with in Meyerland seek out the flooring for its water-resistant qualities.

“Shortly after Hurricane Harvey, when people were looking for different materials, they were looking for things that were more water-resistant. Accidents happen or a dishwasher malfunctions and you want a flooring product that won’t buckle,” Starr said. “I still love wood floors, but luxury vinyl tile has come so far and has so many colors and textures, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be a top contender.”

The primary bedroom is full of textures and deep, muted neutrals.

“I wanted it to be kind of sexy, to be honest. More of a dark, sexy comfortable room,” Shelly said.

They kept their contemporary brass canopy bed with a brown velvet headboard and brought in new things to fill the rest of the room. In their prior home, they leaned toward Tuscan style; here Shelly wanted to lean more contemporary.

The back wall is covered in dark, Thibaut charcoal gray grasscloth wallpaper, and a dark blue tufted upholstered bench sits at the foot of the bed.

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“Bedrooms are all about textures and layering in linens. The tall ceiling gives it a presence when you walk in, and no area was overlooked. The chandelier, the fireplace and porcelain tile on the back wall — every piece is hand selected for a sexy mood,” Starr said.

In the primary bath, they used porcelain tile with a glass liner on the walls and in the shower. Floating vanities and back-lighted mirrors give the room a resort-like feel.

The home’s guest bedrooms have bathrooms that got a full design treatment, with blue wallpaper and nice tile and plumbing fixtures. 

The powder bath, accessible from inside and outside the home, also serves as the pool bath and has pretty white marble tile with brass inlay up one 12-foot wall. 

While the Maddoxes have been in their home six months, they haven’t yet used their outdoor kitchen. Football season is coming, though, so they’re ready.

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For cooking, they have a grill and a griddle, which their sons are anxious to use for steaks, chicken, fajitas and even pancakes.

“Our friends and family who like to cook come over. I tell them I’ll buy the food and they can cook it,” Shelly laughed. “The outdoor island is another big counter that five people can sit around. It’s a nice gathering place.”

When Starr finished the Maddoxes’ home, that wasn’t the end of their relationship. She and her husband hired the Maddoxes to install a pool in their backyard, and they had their first party in it this past Fourth of July.

Diane Cowen has worked at the Houston Chronicle since 2000 and currently its architecture and home design writer. Prior to working for the Chronicle, she worked at the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune and at the Shelbyville (Ind.) News. She is a graduate of Purdue University and is the author of a cookbook, "Sunday Dinners: Food, Family and Faith from our Favorite Pastors."