By Nancy Keates / Photography by Jacqueline Young for WSJ

Some Disney fanatics get their fix by visiting the theme parks. Tech entrepreneur Jeff Fettes and his husband, Chris Fettes, wanted to live in their own Magical Kingdom.

The setting for their dream: a 12,000-square-foot, traditional-style home built in 2009 in the Tuxedo area of Winnipeg, Canada.

They bought the brick, stucco and limestone house for around $4 million in 2019 and then undertook a $4.4 million, three-year renovation, guided by Toronto designer Meredith Heron, a former HGTV and Food Network host who is obsessed with color, texture and glamour.

"We wanted to elevate design to the level of fantasy," said Chris, 49, who was a full-time cast member, dancer and parade performer at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla., in the late 1990s. "Our goal was to create an experience and a story."

The result is almost rococo, a twist on the 18th-century European decorative art. Disney had similarly adapted the style, emphasizing the dramatic and playful element of design and using French motifs in everything from swings to candelabras. The house's staid exterior belies the extravaganza within.

"They love to surprise people," said Heron. Key guiding words for the design were "sparkle" and "fabulous," she said. "The house had to feel truly extraordinary."

For each room, they spent a lot of time talking about what music they'd listen to and what cocktail they'd drink there to give it its own character. They had been looking for a house they could transform into a series of theatrical or magical moments which, combined, would create an overarching story, transporting guests to a different world.

"We wanted each room to be experiential," said Jeff, 50, who grew up going to Disneyland and would regularly go to Chris's shows when they were first dating in Florida.

The "Garage Mahal," as the couple have dubbed it, is a garage that was renovated as a shrine to Frank Sinatra. It houses the peacock blue Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow sedan that Frank Sinatra bought as a wedding present to his wife, Barbara, which Chris won in an auction. The jazzy room, with lacquered wood paneling, oversize, backlit framed photos of Frank and Barbara and a curved blue sofa, is where Chris hangs out, listening only to Sinatra records and drinking cocktails with friends. "It is way sexier than a man cave," he says.

Jeff's downstairs office is nicknamed "Avengers headquarters," and the windowless room has the feel of a spaceship. To enter, you touch a panel and a pocket door swooshes open, like in Star Trek. There's a long metal "mission control" station, aka a desk. The walls are clad with stainless steel and covered with television monitors and Avengers' logos, and there's room to store much of Jeff's 40,000 comic books. On display is a full-size Iron Man costume. "It makes me feel in touch with my childhood, " said Jeff.

They call one of the bathrooms "The Spa," where the star of the show is what's called an "experiential shower": a multisensory combination of lighting effects, sounds, aromas and water features. Chris's favorite setting is "tropical rain," in which the audio plays thunder and the lighting mimics lightening, the six sprayers emit what feels like raindrops and the diffused fragrance is passion fruit. Birds tweet. It ends with a mist. "It's theatrical!" he said.

In the great room, large crystal chandeliers are meant to evoke a night at New York's Metropolitan Opera. The color scheme of mauve, purple and lavender plays off a Salvador Dalí hung at one end called "Snow Queen." The dining room, with its lacquered wood and sumptuous materials, 24-karat gold trim, tulip-shaped lights and carved interlaced decorative designs, draws inspiration from "The Great Gatsby." Etched on the ceiling is the couple's house logo: HH, which stands for Handsart House, the name of the home (and the street it is on).

Every room has a theme: A guest room called the "Pink Room," inspired by the pink domed buildings in "Aladdin," is particularly popular with their 15-year-old niece.

The kitchen is designed to feel like it is outdoors. A copper canopy supported by metal arms, inspired by the marquee at the Plaza Hotel in New York, juts out from over the kitchen sink. That, along with the room's reclaimed brick walls and two-story high ceilings, makes it feel like a theater set. The house is full of heirlooms -- antiques and artwork they inherited from their childhood homes and relatives.

The couple met in 1997 when they were both students at the University of South Florida. Jeff, who was born in Saskatchewan, didn't have residency in the U.S., so the couple eventually moved to Canada. They have since married.

In 2002, the couple moved to Toronto, after Jeff co-founded a customer-service tech startup now called IntouchCX. After seven years, they moved to Winnipeg to be closer to Jeff's family.

Winnipeg was a bit of a hard sell at first, says Jeff. Chris, who grew up in Tampa, had always said it was much too cold. But the plethora of large, beautiful old homes at lower prices than Toronto did the trick. The first house they bought there was a Tudor. They wanted to put in their Disney aesthetic, but they didn't want to change that home's character and charm.

In 2020, Jeff founded and became CEO of Laivly, an AI platform for customer service. Chris still works in global growth for Intouch.

Part of the appeal of buying their current house was its eccentricity, including several secret rooms behind hidden doors.

The couple also bought the house next door in 2021 and tore it down. Heron is currently working on designing a brick and limestone outdoor entertainment pavilion there. The idea is to use it as a dining area and speakeasy, she said.

Chris said he has adjusted to Winnipeg, but he still likes to live a Floridian lifestyle: He wears shorts year-round and spends a lot of time in the Florida Room, which gets the most sun and has a wood-burning fireplace to keep it warm. "Happiness is an attitude," he said.

Write to Nancy Keates at Nancy.Keates@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 10, 2025 13:00 ET (17:00 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.