Retired Agassi Serving New Game

Andre Agassi lifts those dark eyebrows, flashes that winning grin and says: “I don’t have a game plan.”

For the winner of eight Grand Slam singles tournaments and an Olympic gold medal, that may be one of the greatest pleasures of Life After Tennis.

In Houston last week for the opening of Gallery Furniture’s new Kreiss showroom, Agassi the businessman parked his cocktail on a coffee table and got thoughtful about current projects, despite the throng of female fans thickening around him.

“It’s all about lifestyle for us,” said Agassi. “Us” means wife Stefanie Graf (she has stopped going by Steffi) and their son Jaden, 6, and daughter Jaz, 4, two kids swimming in a seriously rarefied gene pool. “All the business ventures started organically.”

Agassi’s reach has extended beyond sport for years. In 1992, he founded a charitable foundation that offers education and recreation to at-risk kids. He and Graf are also involved in a luxury vacation spot in Costa Rica and a handful of restaurants with San Francisco chef Michael Mina.

His interest in furniture design started percolating in 1992, after he won Wimbledon. That’s when he bought his first “serious” piece of Kreiss furniture and struck up a friendship with company president Michael Kreiss, a former U.S. Open tennis player. Soon, Agassi and Graf began buying Kreiss pieces for their home, often tweaking them to fit their needs. A few years ago, Kreiss phoned them in the middle of the night with a question: Would they like to collaborate with the company on their own line?

“She likes symmetry and strong shapes; he likes texture, comfort, and a little more serendipity,” said Kreiss, whose company is known for its high-end contemporary furnishings. “They wanted an emphasis on indoors and outdoors. And they wanted comfort and practicality — for their kids and kids in general.”

Kreiss timed the release of the first AGK pieces with Agassi’s retirement, in September 2006.

Since then, Agassi, 37, has filled his time with family. Being a dad, he said, is “like Christmas, every day.” The Agassi-Graf clan lives in Las Vegas, where Agassi grew up, with plenty of extended family nearby. Graf’s mother lives there, along with her brother and his family and Agassi’s brother and family.

“There are a lot of open doors in our house,” Agassi said. “On the weekends, we have all the cousins running around.”

When they aren’t in Vegas, they’re 90 miles north of Boise, Idaho, working and playing at their biggest project of all. Fairmont Tamarack, an all-season resort in Donnelly, has golfing, skiing, snow mobiling, biking, hiking and watersports on 21-mile Lake Cascade. Agassi spends a lot of time there snowboarding — his latest passion. He and Graf fell in love with the area four years ago, bought a home nearby and partnered with other investors in the resort.

In a few months, they’ll break ground on an 800,000-square-foot hotel-condo, basically a castle on a mountain. Although it won’t be finished until 2011, they’ve already sold dozens of units, one to Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart and many to Major League Baseball players. These are elite spaces, with studios starting at $700,000.

“It’s a rare place,” said Agassi, “with mountains, meadows and a lake.”

He’s a long way from the early years of arresting hairstyles (remember the mohawk?) and volatile on-court behavior. The Agassi who visited Houston was grounded and serene. A guy who certainly doesn’t need a head of hair to be handsome. A guy who makes jokes about the presidential candidates promoting change but plans “to stay open-minded until that voting moment.”

When asked which parts of his business philosophy are culled from two decades in professional tennis, he thought for a moment. “Attention to detail,” he said, finally. “Not getting ahead of yourself. Remembering that the most important point is the next one.”

And what about tennis? Is it a big part of his family’s life?

“The kids play on weekends,” he offered.

But does he play?

“Sometimes,” said Agassi, with a look that is three parts patience and one part apology. “I enjoy myself now more. I used to care more about the shots I missed. Now, it’s the reverse.”

- Maggie Galehouse, Houston Chronicle