DECOR
Right: Triangular-shaped pinwheel
art hangs from the ceiling above
the staircase.
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"People can find our home by just looking for the house with
the triangle coming out of the top," Scott Monchnik said.
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OUR HOUSE
Scott and Rae Monchnik's unique
triangular home will highlight
Groves High School home tour.
STORY BY
SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
f you've ever seen a hair styl-
ist with a great "do" or a den-
tist with a perfect smile, you
can imagine how remarkable the
inside of the home of an architect
and his creative wife might be.
But guests of the third annual
Heart of the Home House Tour
won't have to visualize it in their
minds when they are invited into
the West Bloomfield home of Rae
and Scott Monchnik as part of a
fund-raising project for this year's
Birmingham Groves High School
senior class party.
The party, held for the 307 grad-
uating seniors, will cost between
$30,000 and $35,000. The hope is
to raise $7,500 with this year's tour
of nine homes, held noon-4 p.m.
Sunday, March 13.
Until six years ago, the
Monchniks lived next door to the
home they live in now When the
former owners of their current site
tore the house down and decided
against rebuilding, the Monchniks
bought the land and spent the next
year watching their new home
being built.
In designing the house, Scott
focused on a unique triangular core
that he created in its center.
"All the rooms branch out from
the central, triangle-shaped, two-
story foyer," said Scott, a residen-
tial and commercial architect, and
owner of Scott Monchnik and
Associates Inc. in West Bloomfield.
There are no real hallways per
se, and most rooms on the main
level do not have doors on them.
Even the basement stairway has
only a door at the bottom.
"Because of the angles of the
house, we pick up niches that
normally wouldn't have been
there," Scott said of the 3,400-
square-foot home.
And the triangular shape contin-
ues right through the roof.
"By using cedar wood, I could
use the same material on the out-
side as on the inside of the trian-
gle," Scott said. "On the outside,
the brick masses butt up against it
and then the outside is brought
inside with the wood."
Even before entering the home,
guests can see its theme. The
mezuzah at the front door is triangu-
lar as is the door's stained glass
Rae and Scott Monchnik open their
home for Groves' seniors.
A stained glass panel over the kitchen window is one of what Scott Monchnik calls "the subtle Frank
Lloyd Wright influences" in the home.
1 8 • MARCH 2005 • JNPLATINUM