It took four years to complete, but every square inch of the Moosavi home was crafted with top quality and care.
By Katherine Pyles
HQ 131 | AUTUMN 2025
It’s one thing to build your dream home — it’s another to design every inch of it yourself.
That’s exactly what Dr. Ben Moosavi and his wife Ginger did with their home in The Oaks, a gated community off Big Ben Highway in Barboursville. They started with a stock plan, but Ginger reimagined it room by room, customizing every space to fit her family’s lifestyle.
“She’s got a passion for this,” Ben said.
“I don’t know, I’m just very particular,” said Ginger, laughing. “I’ve always enjoyed stuff like this. I knew no one else was going to make me happy.”
The exterior of the home — a Craftsman, with modern farmhouse touches — features white board-and-batten siding, soft gray brick and charcoal accents, with steep gables lending a timeless silhouette. Custom cedar columns add warmth and a sense of regional craftsmanship that ties the home to its wooded surroundings.
Chad Wilkinson of Solid Rock Pro Construction brought the couple’s vision for the exterior to life.
“The X’s were a theme,” Ginger said, noting the crisscross motif on the carriage-style garage doors. “There are X’s all throughout the house — the kitchen island, the basement, the porch. It’s definitely a modern farmhouse look.”
Black-framed windows are another defining architectural feature of the home. Notably, there are no window blinds anywhere — a bold choice that took some adjusting for the couple’s teenage children.
“It’s been interesting for sleep, I will say,” Ginger said with a smile. “But I told Ben, ‘Listen, it’s daylight; everyone needs to be up.’ And they’ve adjusted really well — they all sleep right through it now.”
White oak floors and a palette of soft neutrals give the home a warm, lived-in feel — cozy and inviting, just as Ginger intended for hosting guests. For the woodwork, she turned to Ralph Hutchinson of Quality Woods in Eleanor to achieve the ideal balance of tone and texture.
“Ralph was a huge support for the ideas that I had,” she said. “I’d show him a picture, and he’d say, ‘OK, I think we can make that happen.’”
Quality Woods crafted custom built-ins that bring form and function to nearly every space, from the mudroom to the library to the wine room built in place of a formal dining room.
“Formal” isn’t a word the Moosavis use to describe any part of the house.
“We don’t do anything formal,” Ben said. “We built this for the family, for the kids. It’s a beautiful home, but it’s all built around the family.”
That philosophy shows in every feature: the pool and hot tub, the outdoor living spaces, the not one but two gaming rooms and the full-size basketball court, complete with an adjacent home gym.
“We wanted the kids and their friends to have a space to play, especially in the wintertime when the weather’s bad,” Ben said.
Over the course of the home’s four-year build, Ginger handpicked every fixture, furnishing and finish, sourcing from favorites like Restoration Hardware and Arhaus. She can still recite all the paint colors by heart — Urbane Bronze for Ben’s office, Chantilly Lace in varying sheens for the walls, ceilings and trim. For the kitchen’s quartzite countertop, she drove to a Cincinnati slab yard with Ben and Brandon Jividen of Prime Cabinets & Countertops and picked one out herself.
“We were there probably five minutes,” she recalled. “As soon as I saw this one, I said, ‘That’s the one.’”
Inspired by design blogs and travel finds, Ginger had a few “musts”: Bevolo copper gas lights for the pool area, handmade Zellige tile for the kitchen and laundry room and mixed metals throughout the home, including faucets she sourced exclusively from California. For Ginger, every design choice had to feel like it belonged — not just in the house, but also in the surrounding landscape.
“I wanted the house to feel like it was in harmony with the natural environment,” she explained.
“Every detail had thought,” Ben added. “A house plan is just a plan. But getting to see Ginger’s excitement when an idea would come, and then getting to see how it all came together, that’s what was really cool.”
It might’ve taken four years, but for the Moosavis, the wait was worth it.
“Ben’s easy to deal with, so it was fun,” Ginger said. “But still — we’re glad it’s over. It’s exactly what we wanted and exactly what I envisioned.”
