Every Sunday, exceptional wide receiver Randall Cobb produces plays that make people gasp and ask themselves, “What just happened?” In case you haven’t watched the Tennessee native play, there are numerous YouTube videos featuring him swerving and sidestepping potential tacklers. But Sunday is just one day in the week.
Randall spends the rest of his time at what can be described as the exact opposite of a high-stress professional football arena.
Regarding his recently completed house in West University location, a city inside the boundaries of Houston, Texas, Randall comments, “It’s been incredible to have a place where our two young children can run around the yard and make memories.” Randall and his spouse, lawyer Aiyssa Cobb, remark, “We kept hearing about West U from our friends.”
“It felt like the ideal situation for us when we were finally able to see the area and realized how walkable the restaurants and coffee shops were.”
But the Cobbs bought their property in Houston in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. The young family was living in Los Angeles at the time, as if that wasn’t enough to make the design process more difficult. They of course sought help to equip their home, speaking with Jonathan and Roxanne Wimmel of Wimmel Design and Construction as well as interior designer Brandon Fontenot.
Regarding the homeowners, Brandon Fontenot remarks, “their aesthetic is consistent with that region of the country, even though neither of them is from California.” That served as the foundation for the design we created. We had to take into consideration the fact that, of course, they have kids; the living room needed to be free-form, the coffee table had to be circular, and it had to look stylish.
Chic, certainly, as if the goal of competitive sports like football is not to create beauty, it surely is for interior design. “Jonathan and Roxanne truly listened to our request that the space be both aesthetically pleasing and functional,” says Aiyda. We wanted our kids to have as much fun as we do and to have amazing adventures.
It was made more difficult by the fact that FaceTime was used for a lot of this because of the pandemic. But [the designers] really succeeded in making our house come to life.
The Cobbs, who got married six years later after meeting through mutual acquaintances in 2011, love hosting guests for their loved ones. “On game day weekends during the football season, we always have guests,” remarks Randall, an NFL veteran of eleven years. “Obviously, the pandemic is still going strong, but in the off-peak months, we have monthly team outings at our house. We also like to have coworkers over for a game night or dinner.
This is not to say that the house is meant only for entertaining. It is meant to be occupied. In light of this, the Cobbs wanted the room to have an abundance of natural light. However, the design of the main bedroom was not suitable with this desire. As Roxanne Wimmel puts it, “We suggested making their bedroom extremely dark.” Thus, the Cobbs informed us, “All right, we’ll put our trust in you.” When the homeowners viewed the room a few weeks later, they fell in love with it, stating, “We love it,” according to Randall. The best decision we made was that one.
The family-oriented values that the Cobbs hold dear and are deeply ingrained in their heritage are finally evident in their home. (Their one-year-old sibling, Cade, was called after a mountain range in Tennessee, where Randall is from; their three-year-old son, Caspian, was named after the Caspian Sea as a tribute to Aiyda’s Iranian background.) Above all, according to Aiyda, the house had to feel cozy and comfortable. This is an aesthetic that has always appealed to both Randall and me.