Designer’s dream job | detnews.com | The Detroit News.
Featured in today’s Detroit News Homestyle section- A profile of a breathtaking residence that Vogue had the opportunity to work on with Susan Winton-Feinberg, among other talented area artisans. Click the link above for the full piece complete with photos and video.
Jim Reilly, production manager of Vogue Furniture in Royal Oak, shows off the French Deco-style rosewood cabinet with sycamore interior that his company custom-made for the home. It features French goatskin doors with a hand-carved mermaid handle covered in silver leaf. (Brandy Baker/ The Detroit News)
Designer’s dream job
Wealthy client gives decorator free hand to outfit a luxury home in French Deco style
Susan R. Pollack
Susan Winton-Feinberg calls it “the design job of a lifetime” and her assignment surely must be the envy of designers everywhere.
The interior design veteran, owner of Walter Herz Interiors in Bloomfield Hills, was granted an unlimited budget and turned loose by a wealthy client to create her personal vision, a French Deco-style estate that ranks among Metro Detroit’s finest residences.Home to a private investor and family man who wishes to remain anonymous, the Clinton Township compound is a stunning, multimillion-dollar showpiece of custom craftsmanship, museum-quality art and fine antiques.With impressive attention to detail, the 27,000 square-foot home showcases the world’s finest materials, including Makassar ebony and other exotic woods, lush silks, silver and gold leaf, and even pre-ban ivory inlays. Antique sconces by the foyer once graced the ocean liner Normandie and the vintage 1930s French chandeliers are signed.
The 15-acre manicured grounds are equally lovely with a gazebo, chapel, three-hole golf course, walking trail and a pool complex with a Bellagio-style dancing fountain. There’s also a playhouse for the homeowners’ three children, now grown.
This spring, the estate’s new three-level garage, with a 2,200 square foot two-bedroom apartment on top and an all-white tile detailing room below, was named America’s top garage on HGTV’s “Top 10 Garages.”Winton-Feinberg, who has designed hundreds of homes in Michigan, Ohio, Florida and New York over a distinguished 44-year career, was called in when the estate was built 18 years ago and has been leading the home’s ambitious renovation and expansion project for the last three years.
She’s working with the original architect and cabinet-maker, Lou DesRosier of Bloomfield Hills and Vogue Furniture of Royal Oak, respectively. They were joined for the addition by Mosher Dolan Cataldo & Kelly in Birmingham.
In addition to the new garage, the 10,000-square foot addition features a huge “owner’s suite” with an elevator, a drop-down TV that rotates 360 degrees and a pair of two-story, his and her walk-in closets with 20-foot tall windows. A 30-seat theater is being built on the lower level, and includes a decorative fragment from the ceiling of an old Ziegfeld Follies Theater on Broadway in New York.
“Except for the antiques, all the craftsmen are local,” says Winton-Feinberg of the nearly 100 painters, carpenters, electricians, landscapers, plasterers and others who worked on the home. “There are people who can do this exceptional work right here in Metro Detroit.”
Stepping back to look at her career masterpiece, the designer adds: “This is the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Visit Susan Winton-Feingberg’s website susanwintonfeinberg.com
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20101022/LIFESTYLE01/10220320/Designer%E2%80%99s-dream-job#ixzz135vXaZ22
