Ken Konopka didn't buy his home in Atco for the house. He bought it for the potential.

"It was a little white asbestos house with an acre of land," says Konopka, 49, originally from Philadelphia. He knew his neighbors would be quiet, too - a church on one side, and a farm around the rest.

Over the last 22 years, developer Konopka has turned that original two-bedroom, one-bath cottage into a three-bedroom, 2.5-bath dream home. It might be high-end, but it keeps a rustic feel, bringing the outdoors inside and making outdoor spaces feel like part of the home. He followed the same advice he gives his clients: Build what you want, without an eye on resale value.

"If you're already planning on selling what you're building or renovating, then move out," says Konopka, a partner in Tri-County Development Group, a Medford Lakes firm that specializes in high-end renovations.

For Konopka, that meant not a traditional driveway, but one under a covered bridge (which is on the New Jersey register of covered bridges). It meant koi ponds, boardwalks, and waterfalls in the front and back yards instead of grass; a pool area separated from the house by a gravel driveway; and a trophy room instead of a living room.

"I like doing something different. I get ideas from other things, but I don't want to copy it," Konopka says.

The idea for the covered-bridge driveway, for example, came from a camping trip in Lancaster, Pa. He sketched the plans on a napkin while sitting on his front porch, and built a modified version of a traditional covered bridge in 2000. His biggest change was to lower the level of the bridge's railing - traditional covered bridges had higher railings so horses would believe they were going into a barn instead of over water.

That bridge led to the first pond - since most covered bridges go over water, Konopka added the pond next to the bridge. That led to a stream running through the front yard, which led to ponds and streams in the backyard, and boardwalks over the streams, and even a pond next to the backyard pool - the pond has a small bridge on it that is used as a diving area into the deepest part of the pool.

Konopka started, though, by expanding the little house, bumping out the front and adding a front porch. Then, he expanded back onto the acre of land, so that the original backdoor of the house is now the entrance into the kitchen. A window that once faced the backyard is now occupied by a fish tank. You can watch the fish swim by from the front sitting room and the trophy room.

The backyard was all sand and a hill. But as he expanded the house, Konopka pushed back the land and hill with a backhoe, creating an earthen wall of dirt to surround the pool area he built in 2002. Separated by a high fence and a driveway from the rest of the house, the pool area also includes a wet bar, waterfall, and pool house. The pool house has its own kitchen, bathroom, and outdoor shower. In keeping with the casual feel of the pool area, Konopka created a casual shower: He hooked up a water line to the roof of the pool house that falls into a metal bucket. The water is heated by the sun, and turned into a shower stream by holes in the bottom of the bucket. Inside, he used the same concept but put a drain in the bottom of a large pail.

Last year, Konopka added an outdoor living room, a sheltered space with a wood-burning fireplace. He planned to use tile for the floor, but instead of pouring concrete and topping it with tile, he stained the concrete a rusty brown and cut lines into the floor so the blocks resembled tile. The concrete is more durable and less expensive. It worked so well for his home that he replicated the look when his company renovated Maravela's Banquets and Catering in Medford.

"I wanted it not to be a porch. I wanted it to feel like an extension of the house," Konopka says.

But the most unusual room on the property is the trophy room, also finished last year. It's an expansion of an addition he had completed five years before – only this time, instead of moving just outward, he moved upward to increase space to display his collection.

These aren't Little League trophies.

Konopka went on his first hunting trip when he was 5, tagging along with his father until he was old enough to participate when he turned 12. He has since made hunting trips to Siberia, the Arctic Circle, Africa, and New Zealand. The trophies are stuffed animals that he hunted – an alligator greets you as you walk into the room. A bear stands on its hind legs by one couch, and a panther crouches overhead. Bearskin rugs cover the floor, and geese fly up toward the arched transom roof.

Unlike most of the rooms in the house, the trophy room has only two windows, but the transom is ringed in windows – this allows natural light into the room but prevents direct sunlight from fading the animals.

"Well, I picked out the wall color," Konopka's wife Diane, 55, says of the dusty rose that serves as a backdrop to the animals and shadow boxes Konopka creates of memorabilia from every hunting trip.

"I thought I would freak her out," Konopka says of his hunting collection, which before had been in the smaller addition. She might have wrinkled her nose in jest, but her family hunts, too.

While he has a wood-burning fireplace outside, the fireplace in the trophy room is gas and connected to the thermostat, so lighting the fire doesn't mean overheating the room.

Artifacts from his hunting trips are in practically every room – horns used as towel hooks in the pool-house bathroom, small antlers lining one side of the two-car garage.

While the renovations are extensive, Konopka has saved by doing them over a period of years rather than months, and by reusing items when possible. The wicker furniture in his outdoor room was in his family, just repainted by his sister. He created the posts in the trophy room by stripping cedar logs of bark and refinishing them.

"It's always a work in progress," Konopka says. "I built something and then I go back and rip it apart five years later." His current project is a spa bathroom for Diane – no animals allowed.