1013 Enslen Ave., Modesto, Calif.
Contractor: Flying Turtle Cast Concrete

At their showpiece house, the artisans at Flying Turtle Cast Concrete let their imaginations soar.
By Christina Camara's

Like an artist painting on a blank canvas, Mat Rogers of Flying Turtle Cast Concrete has created a showcase home that demonstrates his experience in design and his ability to use concrete in unexpected ways.

After two years of work, the spectacular result — his own home, at 1013 Enslen Ave. in Modesto, Calif. — is a two-floor, 4,400-square-foot showplace that cost about $1.3 million to create over a 1,700-square-foot home that had been largely torn down. Decorative concrete plays a starring role indoors and out. It’s featured not only in concrete floors, countertops, sinks and fireplace surrounds, but also in three tables and the bed frame and end tables in the master bedroom.

“It was an opportunity to come full circle and integrate all the ideas and skills I had learned and honed with concrete over the last 10 years,” Rogers says.

Rogers had worked as a design-build contractor for a dozen years prior to founding Modesto-based Flying Turtle. His aim at the Enslen house was to show that concrete could look modern, yet warm and inviting at the same time. Architects and designers who have toured the home don’t even realize some of his creations are made of concrete, he says.