DECOR

HOUSE OF GLASS

Eleanor and Ken Zuppke share their unique collection of "breakables."

STORY BY

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANGIE BAAN

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Detroit native Michael Glancy
created"Whirling Golden Reflex,"
which Ken Zuppke calls "a very
important piece in the collection."

ON CONTENTS PAGE:
Stanislav Libensky's
"Through the Cone" is the piece
Eleanor Zuppke calls "the most
important" of the collection.

he thought of bringing kids
into a house with 103
pieces of glass art should
generate fear as great as a bull in a
china shop.
But Ken Zuppke has the
opposite philosophy regard-
ing the collection he and his
wife Eleanor have amassed
over the last 27 years.
"We've always let our
12 grandkids run crazy
around the house," he said -
of their West Bloomfield
home. "We never put any-
thing away when they come
over. When they were little, we
had them get used to the pieces
by letting them touch them."
Ironically, Zuppke said, "The
only one who ever broke a piece in
our collection has been my wife."
And she's the one who started
their collecting.
"I was always into flat art — regu-
lar paintings," Zuppke said. "It was
my wife who was into glass. I never
knew I liked it, but now I love it."
In addition to participating in
house tours locally and in other
cities, they also invite collectors to
their home as well as artists who
speak about their work. These talks

Etched areas are
carved into
"Emptiness," a
colorful, Czeslaw
Zuber glass
creation.

T

are arranged by Ferd Hampson of
Habatat Galleries in Royal Oak.
They also shop for and view
pieces nearby and far from home,
traveling throughout the United
States and Europe "to see what is in
other cities," Eleanor said.
Locally, they shop at Habatat
Galleries, even relying on the expert-
ise of Hampson while they are away.
"We even called him from France
while we were deciding on a piece to
buy," Ken said. "That's how much
we trust him. We have learned so
much from Ferd."

A GLASS PRESENT

The Zuppke collection began with a
gift. "My sister-in-law and brother-in-
law brought us a clear glass snail and
the rest just evolved from there,"
Eleanor said.
In the Zuppke home, glass pieces
are on tables, shelves, pedestals and
cabinets. The collection is displayed
on the main level of the home: in
the den, powder room, kitchen, liv-
ing room and dining room, even on
the ledge that borders the steps
leading upstairs.
"But the downstairs is saturated,
so we might have to start on the
next level," Eleanor said.
And it's a probability: They add at
least one piece of art to their collec-
tion each year.
Every piece is selected by the
two of them but, Ken says, "there is
one piece of glass art that I like but
Eleanor doesn't."

Continued on page 22

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Ken and Eleanor Zuppke, on their stairway,
near Martin Blank's "A Thousand Turns of
the Wheel."