Burning with ambience

EcoSmart's "Zeta" fireplace, available through Poggenpohl at International Design Center. COURTESY PHOTOS Blustery winter days aren't a normal part of the Southwest Florida lexicon, but let's face it: they do happen. The recent spate of chilly weather found more than a few homeowners wishing they could curl up in front of a fireplace. Nothing provides the comfort or ambience of a fire. Perhaps it's DNA coding from the cave-man days, or just a memory trigger from the campfires of youth, but a crackling fire is alluring, magnetic in its power to draw people to it.

While the fireplace has always provided a practical function while serving as the focal point of many a living room or den, it has now evolved to fill a variety of roles. Today's fireplace can be a work of art, or mounted on a wall. It can be a freestanding piece of furniture. Flames can emanate from piles of colored glass instead of logs. You can purchase a "firebox" and then customize what goes around it, from hearth to mantel. And are you ready for remote-control? It's here, and it's popular.

R&D Umbria Positano fireplace Unlike in years past, many of today's fireplaces are energy-efficient. Some can even be a mood-setter without being a heat source. The fireplace has even migrated to the outdoors, expanding a home's living space with the most gracious of all accoutrements.

"Most South Florida home buyers today don't consider a fireplace a necessity," says Realtor Deborah Gleason, of VIP Realty Group Sanibel. "But custom backyard fireplaces are becoming exceptionally popular as Floridians choose to spend more time outdoors. Even in warm weather, a fire can be the focus of an outdoor soiree," she says, "regardless of whether it's two or 20 people enjoying the evening."

Shawanda Jackson, sales manager at Grate Fireplace & Stone Shop in South Fort Myers, concurs that more customers are looking into adding an outdoor fireplace. The thought of adding an outdoor focal point doesn't have to be intimidating; according to Ms. Jackson, The crew at GFS will come to any area home, to assess the site where a fireplace is desired. "If you're doing an outdoor living area, we'll help you figure it out," she says. A contractor is needed for the framing work, and (if you're opting for other than wood-burning) a gas or electric technician would have to be involved. "But we'll install the fire box, and all the flue pipe," says Ms. Jackson, "and do the facing, put the mortar down for the stone to go on top."

Find EcoSmart's "Tower" fireplace in the Poggenpohl showroom at the International Design Center. GFS has a large variety of manmade stone material with which to create a custom hearth. The showroom also has granite, marble and travertine, which can be used as a surround in any nearly any design a homeowner can imagine.

Gas fireplaces 101

The vent-free fireplace is an appealing and versatile option for homeowners wanting to add a fireplace without making structural changes of any kind. These units can be installed anywhere in the home, including interior rooms, because they don't need a chimney. This opens all sorts of design possibilities, including see-through walls. Best of all, vent-free fireplaces are a safe and energy-efficient way to add heat to a room.

This free-standing fireplace from the Poggenpohl showroom comes in several colors. A direct-vent fireplace, explains Ms. Jackson, is the only gas fireplace that you can put into a bedroom or bathroom or study because they don't take oxygen from the room. "It's really neat and it can be vented right out the back like a dryer," she says. "Say you have an area where you want a fireplace, but you have a view you don't want to obstruct; you can vent it right out the back and still have your picturesque view."

"The natural vent fireplace is a type of gas fireplace that has a smaller flu system and it doesn't have to stack as high on the roof as wood-burning does," explains Ms. Jackson.

"Wood-burning fireplaces can all be converted if you ever want to do gas," she says. "It's not necessarily hard to do. You pick out a set of gas logs (there are dozens of styles). Or you can choose a tumbled glass for the 'embers,' using glass instead of logs.

Then you just have a gas professional come out and hook up your lines and tanks, and pull the permits for those. It's a little bit of work but not that involved," she says, noting that many homes have inoperable or rarely used wood-burning fireplaces.

"We also do gas start-ups," says Ms. Jackson. "If you have a home with a gas unit, and you're not sure how to work it, or what does what, we can come out and show you how it operates."

Electric fireplaces

"With the electric fireplace," says Ms. Jackson, "there's no venting and no piping. The 'average Joe' could set up if he feels handy, or we can set it up." The men of the house will particularly like the remote-control feature of these units, which offer separate "flame" and "heat" options. When the heat button is activated, a fan kit circulates warmth from these units into the room.

Grate Fireplace and Stone Shop has numerous free-standing electric fireplaces, each a handsome wooden piece of furniture that can be placed against any wall. They come in a variety of architectural styles and types of wood. The logs glow when the unit is turned on.

"Plug them in and they give you a really nice flame," says Ms. Jackson, "but you can push a button and get a little heat, take the chill off, make it comfortable. They are not expensive to operate at all. . . maybe 6 or 7 cents an hour with the flame effect alone, 14-15 cents an hour with the heaters going. They're very efficient.

"The electric fireplaces definitely go very quickly in this area," says Ms. Jackson, "since many communities are deedrestricted. Homeowner associations are kind of strict about fireplaces and gas lines and tanks and what not. They want to keep most of the homes very similar. Electric is a good option," she says, "in that it doesn't require anything permanent; you don't have to manipulate the house in any way. It's a nice piece of furniture that gives you the ambience of a fire without all the heat."

One clever idea is the Media Center fireplace, which holds a plasma TV up top, and offers storage at the bottom and on both sides of the fireplace.

In yet another twist, GFS also sells "electric logs," which are exactly what they sound like. . . a stack of logs that are lit from within, and can fill any space, including an unused fireplace. "They sit in any opening, and have a nice flame effect," says Ms. Jackson. "They range between $107 and $150. They're pretty nifty."

Artful alternatives

Wall-mounted "fireplaces" are taking hold in modern interiors. These virtual fireplaces come in gas as well as electric, and again, in a variety of styles. Some look like modern art when they're turned off, and all are eye-catching when on, although the "flames" are really just done with lights. GFS carries a few different versions.

If you are, in fact, more of an outof the-box type person, head straight to the Poggenpohl showroom at the International Design Center. Manager Tony Mammoliti will happily wait while his shoppers get over the shock of the Tower fireplace by EcoSmart. Part of a series which features designer shapes holding ethanol-fueled burner kits, EcoSmart offers cutting edge looks which still provide comfort and allure. Poggenpohl's tower fireplace is also featured in the Design Showcase presently at the IDC.

If the tower takes your breath away, EcoSmart's "Zeta" fireplace will leave you (and all your friends) speechless. The giant free-standing elliptical frame incorporates wood and stainless steel, while the leather outer surface comes in a variety of colors. The Zeta is completely portable and also uses environmentally friendly ethanol.

A third model, the Aspect fireplace, is square, starkly modern, and boldly comes in — among other hues — silver, red, lime green or orange. It's warm, it's green, it's clean. And your friends won't stop talking about it.

The real deal

For many homeowners, nothing is a wood-burning fire. They're more trouble to construct, more trouble to use, and are, in the eyes of insurance companies, riskier. But to devotees of the charred log, all that is simply irrelevant.

Designing the perfect fireplace can be tricky, but there's help to be had. "If you're thinking about adding a fireplace to an existing home," says Ms. Jackson, "we'll come out and give you a free estimate, and show you what we could or couldn't do." Her showroom on U.S. 41 carries a full line of fireplace accessories, from bellows to screens to grates. "And we sell a lot of firewood," she adds with a laugh.