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The living room has a thin marble tiles that run floor to ceiling and are embedded with a television above a narrow, gas-burning fireplace.

Birju and Hiral Patel’s home in the Dominion is a modern, four-bedroom, eight-bath house with a huge pool in the backyard, a game room with a full bar and an indoor theater that seats 12 and has its own popcorn machine.

This is the view of the backyard pool that greets visitors to the Patel house as they enter the front foyer.

A section of white cabinetry above the sink provides a nice contrast to the rest of the kitchen.

The dining area has a glass-top table and 10 deep blue chairs.

The backyard pool area has a full kitchen, and a comfortable sectional sofa seating area.

There are also several large pieces of art throughout the house. A sculpture of balancing rings greets visitors in the foyer, while bars of handblown glass in different colors hang on a nearby wall.

Birju Patel develops and operates hotels throughout Texas, so he knows a thing or two about the hospitality business. The new home he and his wife Hiral built in the Dominion neighborhood just off Interstate 10 outside Loop 1604 was designed to entertain their large families, who live close enough to gather most weekends.

But they wanted to do that entertaining in style.

After eight months and $2 million of construction, the four-bedroom, eight-bath home the Patels moved into in early 2021 is an ultra modern house that, beneath its austere facade and abstract art throughout, is comfortable and welcoming enough for their two young sons and the frequent family gatherings.

The open kitchen allows lets Hiral Patel keep an eye on her two young children while she’s cooking.

Nowhere is the clever combination of modern and comfortable more apparent than in the large open kitchen adjacent to the living area and dining room. The kitchen cabinets are polished laminate and the backsplash is pearl-finished glass tile. Everything is white, black and gray and polished to such a high-gloss sheen, they almost look three dimensional.

And the kitchen features not one, but two white quartz-topped islands with gray veining, both with waterfall edges. But the family uses one for eating and homework and the other, which has a small bar sink, for food prep.

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“My wife loves to cook,” Patel, 36, said. “Morning, lunch and dinner every day, the kitchen is being used. And she likes that it’s open, so she can keep an eye on the kids while she’s cooking.”

The main living room area is dominated by a massive wall with a hand-sketched geometric abstract design that looks like lasers shooting into the distance. It was constructed of pieces of engineered wood finished with three coats of gray metallic paint.

The open kitchen, dining and living areas have soaring 16-foot ceilings that seem to hover above furr downs made of a complimentary laminate with recessed lighting and from which hang a variety modern lighting fixtures. The white, black and gray palette continue into the living room, home to an imposing, gray abstract wall treatment that looks like lasers shooting into the distance. Constructed of engineered wood, each piece was individually cut and affixed to the wall and then finished with three coats of metallic paint.

But with lots of natural light streaming in from tall windows, a large-screen TV and a narrow, gas-burning fireplace, the room has become a favorite gathering spot for the family and their guests.

While Patel sketched out the basic design of the home himself, he knew neither he nor Hiral had the skills to handle the interior decorating. So he called in Jaimie Anand owner and lead designer of Austin-based Jaimie Anand Interiors for help.

“Birju told me he wanted clean lines and hard finishes,” she said. “He also wanted a neutral palette with pops of color in every room.” Anand also curated several pieces of custom art for the house.

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“Birju wanted unique pieces,” she said. So she found, among other selections, an abstract sculpture of white balancing rings she placed in the foyer and a school of colorful, hand blown glass bars hung on one wall. Everything was selected to be either large enough or hung high enough to be completely child-proof.

“We can have as many 20 family members here at one time, but it’s still our home,” Patel said.

The bar has a green onyx top and a green mosaic patterned tile wall behind it.

Other parts of the home are more obviously meant for fun gatherings, but the style remains contemporary. The ground floor game room has a bar with a green onyx bar top imported from India and a green mosaic tile wall behind it that was manufactured in Mexico.

“I went with onyx because it’s rare, and I love the striations in it,” he said. “It really stands out.”

There’s also a large, padded card table with room for eight, where family members can often be found playing a friendly game of poker, and there’s a TV to watch the game or keep the little ones occupied.

Upstairs, the sleek home theater is equipped with a 135-inch screen and raked seating for 12. In addition to the popcorn machine, Patel also outfitted it with an ice machine that makes small, crunchy pellet ice.

The home theater seats 12 and has its own popcorn machine.

Patel said that while the kids and his job have prevented him from enjoying the home theater as much as he expected, his kids and their friends spend plenty of time there watching TV.

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The 65,000-gallon pool out back, which visitors can see as they enter the front foyer, looks like it was designed for a Mediterranean resort.

“Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve loved the water,” Patel explained. “But we’re not on a lake or a river. So I made my own. It’s our own oasis.”

It has a water feature with arching fountains, a raised hot tub in iridescent tiles and a huge infinity pool that appears to drop off to the treeline in the distance. There’s also a tanning ledge, bubblers and six fire features for some nighttime drama.

The pool area has a hot tub, a tanning ledge with bubblers and six fire features.

There are several spots around the pool for visitors to relax. The covered living space adjacent to the house has a large sectional sofa and is equipped with a full outdoor kitchen, including a range that help spell the kitchen inside.

“We use this range anytime we’re frying something or cooking something smelly,” he said. “If we’re cooking fish, we’re doing it out here.”

At the back of the yard, near the bottom of the 8-foot infinity edge drop, is another seating area surrounding a gas-burning fire pit.

“We really enjoy spending time there,” Patel said. “Especially during cooler weather when its relaxing to hear the splashing of the falling water.”

rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini

Richard A. Marini is a features reporter for the San Antonio Express-News where he's previously been an editor and columnist. The Association of Food Journalists once awarded him Best Food Columnist. He has freelanced for American Archaeology, Cooking Light and many other publications. Reader's Digest once sent him to Alaska for a week. He came back.