DESIGN
All Dressed Up
Local designers embellish the beautiful bones of an Albert Kahn-designed home.
BY
LYNNE KONSTANTIN
T
he air is crisp, colorful leaves
crunch underfoot. What can
it mean? House tour season!
For we who live to peek
inside others' homes, not to mention
know by first name the uber-hot design-
ers, the latest fabric lines and what color
combo is the new brown-and-baby blue,
'tis the season to plan a trip to the Detroit
Symphony Orchestra's 2005 Design
Showhouse and Gardens. Here, 28 local
designers plus three landscape architects
will transform a single structure, room by
room, into their own unique visions using
the finest innovations. Half the fun,
though, is getting a glimpse inside a
charming, historic piece of architecture
normally off-limits to the public. So, we
offer a preview of the story behind the story of
this year's home and its architect, Albert Kahn.
Kahn was born near Frankfurt, Germany; in
1880 his father, a rabbi and teacher, brought his
family, including eight children, to the Detroit
area, where they had relatives. Though Kahn
aspired to be an artist, his art teacher — who took
him on at no charge — thought architecture
would better suit the boy, discovered to be color-
blind.
Eventually forging into business on his own
with the still-thriving Albert Kahn Associates in
Detroit, Kahn is renowned for changing the face
of industrial architecture. Previously, factories and
auto plants were dismal, cramped firetraps.
"Nine-tenths of my success has come because I
listened to what people said they wanted and
gave it to them," Kahn once told the Detroit News
(whose building he constructed on West
Lafeyette in 1917, and which now also houses the
Free Press.)
He was equally concerned with the design of a
building as with the comfort of the people who
would be using it, as illustrated in Diego Rivera's
Detroit Institute of Arts murals, which were
The sight of architect Albert Kahn hunched over his desk, study-
ing and designing plans, was a familiar one to his employees.
inspired by Kahn's new Ford complex along the
River Rouge. In the year 1938, Kahn was respon-
sible for 19 percent of all architect-designed
industrial buildings in the country.
But his vision also had a softer side. Kahn can
be thanked for the gorgeously imaginative
designs of the Art Deco Fisher Building in
Detroit, the Georgian-style Dearborn Inn (the
country's first airport hotel) and Detroit's Belle
Isle Aquarium. He based the first design of his
own synagogue, Temple Beth El (now Wayne
State University's Bonstelle Theatre) in Detroit
on the Pantheon in Rome, also designed its sec-
ond building in 1923 and based the 1932 Detroit
incarnation of Congregation Shaarey Zedek on
the Romanesque Revival synagogues he had seen
in Chicago and Cleveland. His firm also collabo-
rated with architect Percival Goodman of New
York on the sharply peaked structure on Bell
Road, when the congregation moved to
Southfield in 1962.
But Kahn didn't only build factories for
Detroit's wealthy industrialists. He was also
tapped to design many of their homes in
Grosse Pointe Shores, Detroit's Indian
Village and Bloomfield Hills. Among
them: the English manor-styled Edsel
Ford House, the Windsor (formerly
Walkerville) home of Hiram Walker's son
and the Cranbrook House in Bloomfield
Hills.
Albert Kahn also built the home at 945
Cranbrook Road, the site of this year's
Ati
DSO Showhouse. The French Country-
style cottage, situated on four lush acres
in Bloomfield Hills, was designed in
1923 with a sun room, a sleeping porch, a
breakfast room and detached garage.
In 1928, the home's first occupant
moved in. Ralph Stone came from
Delaware to Michigan to attend the
University of Michigan Law School, and went on
to become president of the Detroit Trust
Company, a close friend of George Booth and
serve on various Cranbrook Community boards of
trustees for 25 years.
The property has changed hands several times
over the years; during World War II, it was rented
to Charles Lindbergh, in Detroit to advise Henry
Ford on how to convert manufacturing facilities
from producing cars to producing bombers.
In 1949, the home was purchased by Helen
and Roger Kyes. Mrs. Kyes helped to establish
what is now Oakland University in 1957 and
played a significant role in establishing the
Meadow Brook Music Festival in Rochester Hills;
her husband served as a deputy secretary of
defense in the Eisenhower administration.
Most recently, the property was acquired by
the Cranbrook Educational Community, which
has dubbed it the Lyon House and Gardens at
Cranbrook in honor of longtime benefactors. But
the legacy of Albert Kahn lives on, not only in his
thousands of structures still in use, but in this one
home, through which we can leisurely meander
through October. ❑
The DSO's 2005 Design Showhouse and Gardens will be held at an Albert Kahn-designed home at
945 Cranbrook Road in Bloomfield Hills, on the grounds of the Cranbrook Educational Community.
Twenty-eight local designers and three landscape architects will embellish 22 rooms, including a guest
cottage and detached workshop, plus the landscaping of the home ; which will be open to the public
Oct. 8 through Oct. 30.
A Preview Party will be held 6-9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7; tickets begin at $175. House Tour tickets cost
S20/door; $18/ticket outlets: S18/guided 9 a.m. group tours. For information, call (313) 576-5477;
www.detroitsymphony.com .
This 1923 Albert Kahn-designed home is the site of this year's
DSO Design Showhouse and Gardens.
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OCTOBER 2005 • JNPLATINUM
A garden boutique and a "garage sale" of items offered by the designers will be open to the
public. Funds raised will benefit the DSO's education and outreach programs.