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The Good Earth

"When you walk into the house,

the first thing you see is the dining

room and this vista beyond," says

designer Jane Redfield Schwartz. The

homeowners entertain often and large

so they wanted the dining area to be
as big as possible. "We used a lot of

our furniture from our previous home,

A warmed-up
contemporary
home takes its
cue from its
lush Franklin
landscape.

Lynne Konstantin I Design Writer
Beth Singer I Photographer

oiling hills and massive cloaks of leafy trees are not the typical landscape inspired
by Frank Lloyd Wright's clean-lined Prairie School style of architecture (so named
for the flat expanses of landscape the horizontal architecture echoes). But it was
their lush, pastoral Franklin property that inspired a Jewish couple and their team of
designers and builders to create a home that seems to organically rise from the earth.
To bring her vision to life, the homeowner called her longtime designer and college
friend, Jane Redfield Schwartz, co-owner of Kelter Schwartz Design in Bloomfield Hills,
along with Ben Heller and Chris Morgan of Morgan-Heller Associates, a full-service
design and build firm (housed in a 1927 hotel in Pontiac they renovated); John Morgan of
Perspectives Custom Cabinetry in Royal Oak; and Gary Roberts of Great Oaks Landscape
in Novi.
During the design and construction of the home, says the homeowner, "We all met
weekly for years. It was a total collaboration, and we were all on the same page. When my
parents had a decorator, she showed them three couches, and they picked one, and that was
it. With Jane, we look at everything together" in a long process of making final decisions.
The benefit, of course, is that the home has a purpose and a flow — and has won mul-
tiple design awards.
"We worked the entire design of the house together:' says Schwartz. "We worked out
every room, every niche, every detail. It's a wonderful blending when the interior designer
can be involved with everyone else from inception to work together, to design from the
inside out. There are no areas that don't work; every detail has a purpose."
Adds the homeowner, "I like contemporary design; but I'm very informal, and I wanted
that reflected. A lot of the furniture came from our previous home, where my kids have
jumped all over it when they were young, so I'm not afraid to use it. I wanted it to feel
warm and for friends and family to feel comfortable. Hove that it's livable' El

and this house was built around the

furniture so that everything looked
like it worked," says the homeowner,

"except the dining room. I wanted it
as big as possible. The 9-foot dining

table extends to 13 feet to seat 20

comfortably. The mahogany frames
and cutouts of the Troscan arm chairs,

upholstered in textural linen, echo the

sculptural lines of the windows. Sheer

draperies with opaque cutouts are a
vintage design by textile designer and

Cranbrook Academy of Art graduate

Jack Lenor Larsen. Motorized solar

shades protect the walnut floors
and other wood from the sun and

recede into pockets. The granite

that tops the buffet, which Schwartz
designed, is set into the surface and

was chosen for its warm and organic

resemblance to wood. A series of
antique candlesticks from Judy

Frankel Antiques in Troy softens the

contemporary room. "I like design to
be timeless," says Schwartz.

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Do you have a home you'd like to share withcomunity 7 Contact Lynne Konstantin at lkonstantin@thejewishnews.corm

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October 11 • 2012