Thus, the reason for the three wall fountains in the dining room.

"I felt like we had the visual part met," Kirby says.

"When you're cooking you have the smell and taste. But I wanted you to be able to hear something."

But if you ask Kirby where his design inspiration comes from, he'll tell you, "it's money that drives (his) ideas."

And in following with this theme, his 1978 mountain retreat house is a mix of modern and antique, bold and muted and ingenuity, all on a budget.

"The thing is, I like to take great vacations." Kirby says. "I don't want to spend all of my money on my house, so it's sort of a hodgepodge, eclectic mixing."

The businessman who runs an interior decorating and landscape architecture firm out of his home, wanted a place that was tasteful.

So when he bought the house, which was in very bad shape at the time, he pooled his resources and set about transitioning the dilapidated building.

"The house was getting ready to go into full foreclosure the day I bought it," Kirby says. "But it had such great bones to it already, that I guess that's what kind of gave me vision."