‘Extreme Buyers Club’ Finds a High-Flying Home for Aerialist Lovebirds

Mark is incredibly supportive of his partner, Anastasia, and she’s his source of sparkle. That’s aww-inducing as metaphor, but it’s quite literal for these two: He’s the human base for their jaw-dropping partner-acrobatics act, and she’s the flyer he launches into gravity-defying aerial feats. After meeting a decade ago, then falling in love through their eventual athletic connection, these performers were ready to find a shared home base that could also function as their training headquarters.

Noel Collier was up for that high-wire act. The Extreme Buyers Club host and Texas real-estate expert has nerves of steel when it comes to high-drama house hunting, and she didn’t bat an eye at Mark and Anastasia’s wish list (which included 20-foot ceilings, two workout spaces, a dance studio and a home office). She turned her spotlight on Dallas to find the couple’s dream venue and dazzled them just as much as they dazzle their audiences. Step right up for a closer look!

Mark’s lonely townhouse, Anastasia’s itty-bitty apartment and their distances from their shared passion (and each other) weren’t cutting it. “The gym where we normally are, we have to do a crazy commute all the time to get [there], so to be able to just get up [and] be able to do the training in our own home would be amazing,” Mark told Noel. They aimed to find a four-bedroom, three-bath home in the Dallas area, and “our high-end [price] would probably be around [$650,000]-ish,” he added.

“You gotta be careful with that ‘ish,’ ’cause that ‘ish’ could be [$699,000]!” Noel replied. “This home search is really going to be a balancing act between performance space and livability,” she observed. “Mark and Anastasia [are] really trusting me with a big, major step in their relationship and I don’t take that lightly — so I have to get this right.”

Noel aimed high for the first stop on the prospective-home tour. Built in 2017, this handsome candidate had four bedrooms, three and a half baths, nearly 3,500 square feet of interior space — and an asking price of $663,000. “This is Mark and Anastasia’s first home together,” she said. “My goal is to make sure not only does it fit their current lifestyle, but [it also fits] what life will look like for them 10, 15 years from now.”

The home’s two-story rotunda — and the staircase that spiraled down into the foyer beneath it — were instant hits with Anastasia, who had dreamed of making her way through a space like this for ages. “I love the staircase,” she told Noel. “It’s a princess staircase!”

“I would say it’s a queen’s staircase, ’cause you’re the queen, honey!” Noel replied. “Anastasia is excited, I can see the look on her face, but when I revealed that price, $663,000, [Mark]’s like, ‘Girl, who’s paying that?’ I’m like, ‘well sir, you said ish.’”

The home’s second-floor bedrooms and a spacious game room presented attractive possibilities for the office, gyms and studio Mark and Anastasia envisioned. “You have rooms on rooms on rooms,” Noel told them.

“I’m feeling very very excited, but also definitely overwhelmed,” Anastasia said. “Buying a big house for a long time is a big commitment.”

To make matters worse, the spacious, well-finished open kitchen had a quartz island and countertops that sparkled like Anastasia’s stage makeup. What was a cost-conscious couple to do?

“[Our] aerial rig can’t happen unless you have two load bearing walls,” Mark explained to Noel. “[The house] has the ceilings, and the gas fireplace [wall] is probably load-bearing, but then we have our open side on the other side which is just [open] where the kitchen is. So we have to work with the structure of the house, and the house is already $13,000 above my budget.”

Mark and Anastasia visited two more properties with Noel, but one was too narrow to accommodate their training and the other needed renovations. “I have a feeling that you chose [to show us the rotunda house] to just kind of give us an idea of where money could go, where my ‘ish’ could go,” Mark told Noel.

But here’s the thing. “Even with the rotunda house being over my budget and going well into my ‘ish’ zone, crunching the numbers I still have to spend a decent amount of money to make sure I have the placement for that load-bearing wall — but I still end up coming out on top if I choose the rotunda house," he said. "I am beyond excited as we take this next big step together.”

With walls of mirrors, wraparound mood lighting and a barre she can relocate in an instant, Anastasia’s new dance studio suits her needs perfectly. She ceded the largest second-story room to Mark, whose weights and equipment spread out to gobble up all of its ample floor space. The main suite’s seemingly endless walk-in closet, on the other hand, would be almost entirely hers. “When you live with someone you love you figure out what is going to be the ideal space for both of us to coexist,” Mark said. “But I’m getting most of it,” Anastasia added.

The rotunda house’s nearly turnkey appeal was a significant factor in Mark’s willingness to settle into the "ish" just beyond his initial budget. As he explained to Noel at decision time, “I want to make sure that when I actually buy [a] home I don’t have that much work, where I have to keep waiting for new things to change before I actually get the home that I really want.”

Behold the gym that he really wanted! “So this is everything that I needed and the space that I needed,” he said with satisfaction.

“He needed all the space for all this equipment,” Anastasia said.

“I need a little height! I also have my weights here, and I didn’t want to run into walls,” Mark said. Since his strength training contributes directly (and literally) to their act’s foundation, everybody won when he settled into this space.

The heart of Mark and Anastasia’s beautiful new home, of course, is the soaring, sunlit space just beyond this vine-wrapped mezzanine railing. This is the reason they “hit [Noel] with the Uno reverse,” as she put it, and invested in the house of their dreams.

With apologies to the cavernous gyms in which they fell in love, this is where a pair of performers should get to practice their art. Look at all of that glorious natural light and outdoor scenery! “It just kind of makes sense that we would have another cool space where we could be partners for the rest of our lives,” Mark noted.

The perforated white metal beam at Mark’s left is the addition that made this arrangement possible. “It is a truss,” Mark explained. “[We] had a load-bearing wall on one side but [not this side], and what it does is it’s very solid, so that we can have something load-bearing on this side. It is drilled straight through this tile into the foundation.”

“It’s not going anywhere,” Noel noted.

“I feel like this is the cherry on top,” Noel said. “To see Anastasia perform in the middle of their living room, it makes me happy. Because now she can practice at home instead of spending all of her time at the gym.”