This Superstition Mountain dwelling dishes out Old World charm thanks to rich tones and plenty of wrought iron and woods.

Dawn Yunkun and Karen Dobbins met in the mid 90’s as Chicago neighbors—and they’ve been more than meeting clients’ interior design visions in the decade since. One of their recent successes is Yunkun and husband Chris’s semi-custom home in Prospector Village at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club, the luxe 890-acre golf community in the High Sonoran Desert of the East Valley.
Deftly combining their talents, the women, as Villa Bella Designs, coordinated structural changes and then collaborated on colors and finishes, furnishings and artwork. The result was a home of crisply articulated individual spaces and unity of vision. Designed by BBG Architects of Aspen, Colo., the 2,419-sq.-ft. single-level was completed in October 2009 by Superstition Mountain Builders. “The generous homesite in Prospector Village is positioned between the first and ninth fairways of the Prospector golf course and features exhilarating views of the Superstition Mountain Range, golf course and clubhouse,” says Rod Luker, executive vice president of operations for the company. “One challenge was positioning the home to capture the overwhelming and abundant views.”
Prospector is one of the community’s two Nicklaus-designed courses, and the Tuscan-style 50,000-sq.-ft, clubhouse, propped on a mesa, provides the Yunkuns and their neighbors amenities like a golf center and dining room. Somewhere in the Superstition Mountains, legend says, the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine was rediscovered in the 1870’s by German immigrant Jacob Waltz and has remained unrediscovered since.
The Yunkuns’ Old World-style home includes three bedrooms and three baths as well as a kitchenette-equipped casita accessed through a Spanish-style courtyard. The second bedroom is a combination guest room and office.
In completing the interior in just under a year, Yunkun and Dobbins attained the three words they like all of their interiors to describe: warm, welcoming and wow. “We strive in all of our projects to create areas of visual interest throughout the home,” Yunkun says. “We like to exude a very welcoming style.” She explains: “We are laidback and enjoy our family and friends visiting and feeling like they can put their feet up and make themselves at home. The outdoor space here was just as important as the inside, so the physical changes we made to the house almost doubled our entertaining space there.”