MEGAN SWOYER

Special to The Jewish News

T

hey've been bumping heads
in their careers literally for
more than two decades.
She, the interior designer./
He, the architect. When Cary
Greenberg needed an interior designer
to complement his architectural pro-
jects, he oftentimes looked no further
than his wife, Lori.
Having teamed up on various pro-
jects over the years, the couple recent-
ly made the union formal as the West
Bloomfield-based G Group, intended
to be a one-stop-shopping architectur-
al business. They provide services that
include everything from planning
space to choosing wall colors and
lighting and creating landscapes, pri-
marily for office and retail clients.
Many larger architectural firms
offer in-house design services, of
course, but most farm the work out to
other companies. And, although
clients frequently need both kinds of
professional advice, smaller companies
typically can't do both.
With retail and office construction
expected to continue to boom in the
Detroit metro area, the Greenbergs
project that their firm will enjoy annu-
al revenues of between $3 million to
$6 million within the next five years.
But they say they don't want so many
projects that they aren't able to keep

Megan Swoyer is a freelance writer
based in Troy and editorial consultant to
Style magazine.

8/14

1998

108 Detroit Jewish News

and psychiatric hospitals. He also
worked with another firm before cre-
ating Greenberg and Associates.
While Lori often helped Cary on
interior design, it wasn't until their
daughters became more independent
— one is now 16, the other 19 —
that they could think about working
with each other fulltime.
Two of the couple's favorite joint
Cary says they plan to keep the
projects of the past include the
firm small, but that it's growing so
Holocaust Memorial Center in West
much that they are looking for a larger
Bloomfield and the Specs Howard
office, probably in Birmingham or
School of Broadcasting (both at its
Franklin. With three current building
original location and its new home on
projects, including refurbishing the
Nine Mile and Evergreen) in
Towers of Southfield on Lahser and
Southfield.
Eight Mile Road, he says, "That's all I
The primary designer of the
want. We can really watch it, maintain
Holocaust Center was an English
it and handle it."
architect, James Gardner, an architec-
tural hero to Cary. Greenberg was
BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS
hired to provide liaison between the
A graduate of the University of
firm in England and the work in West
Detroit with a bachelor's degree in
Bloomfield. "The guy's
environmental studies and
remarkable," says Cary, not-
a master's degree in archi-
Above: The
ing that Gardner designed
tecture, Cary net Lori
Greenbergs check
the
second floor of the pas-
while she was earning her
with the builder on
senger
ship Queen Elizabeth
bachelor's degree in interior plans for an addition
II
and
created
the sneaker.
design at Wayne State
to a Farmington
"It's
just
him,
a
small little
University. After they mar-
Hills home.
firm."
ried, Lori gave up a full-
Howard ("Specs") Leibman vas
time career to raise children, but went
impressed with their work on his
-
into business for herself.
school and engaged them ro do a re-
"I remember clients coming to the
design and renovation of his Southfield
house and I had blueprints in one
home, which now overflows with sun-
hand and a baby daughter in the
shine-filled,
airy spaces that once were
other," recalls Lori, who is 46.
dark and more conventional.
During the early years of their mar-
riage, Cary worked as a design director
BUSINESS AS USUAL
for a company in Farmington Hills
So how does a couple with a better-
that built and designed nursing homes

Cary and Lori Greenberg combine
their architectural and design talents
into a single firm.

themselves glued to each one.
They also know that many of the
projects they will be working on after,
say, the year 2000, will likely be big
structures. Cary notes that in the past,
most of his jobs involved 1,800- to
2,500-square-foot retail spaces, "but
those are dying out and the big centers
are coming in."
Of course there will still be smaller-
scale projects like restaurants. They are
hoping, for example to work on the
new kosher restaurant being planned
by Paul Kohn, the owner of Quality
Kosher Catering in Southfield.
The G Group currently is putting
the finishing touches on the Middle
Earth Sound Recording Studio.
One of the first projects that Cary
and Lori worked on together as part
of the G Group, the studio in
Farmington not only challenged the
creative pair, but also educated them.
"We had to soundproof everything,"
recalls Cary.
"Cary and Lori are very easy to
work with and one of them was ar the
site at least once a day," said Paul
McKee, owner of Middle Earth.
"They are very detail and time orient-
ed. We knew what would happen
when. And it did."