(9pen Datut I Home Tour

Beauty Brains

Take a sneak peek at a family-friendly, shimmeringly smart home in this year's Temple Israel House Tour.

Lynne Konstantin { Arts & Life Editor

hen a Jewish couple with two young children came upon an empty
lot in Birmingham, they got excited. Close enough to walk to the
downtown area and parks, yet spacious by Birmingham standards, the lot
happened to be for sale by Todd Emerson, owner and president of Sterling
Development Corporation in Bloomfield Hills.
Even more fortuitously, Emerson, a builder and engineer of the home's
architectural design, recommended designer Amy Miller Weinstein, owner
of AMW Design Studio in Birmingham: The pair created a team of partners,
able to collaborate from start to finish, resulting in a cohesion and balance in
every detail, from materials used, palettes chosen, textures highlighted — and
livability emphasized.

Continued on page 30

House Tour

Tour this Birmingham home, along with five others in Bloomfield

Hills and Franklin, featured in the 22nd annual Temple Israel

House Tour, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday, May 27. $25 in advance;

$30 on the day of the tour. (248) 661-5700; temple-israel.org .

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Although many elements are layered within the
dining room, the feel is still clean and modern. A
pair of Bocci chandeliers, found at Birmingham's
Arkitektura in Situ, were lined up side by side to
dangle light-reflecting crystal orbs from their steel
bases. Ligne Roset chairs are covered in orange
felted wool all the way down the legs; the table,
which seats 12 – including two at each end – has
a sheet of mesh sandwiched between two pieces
of glass, creating a grid-like moire pattern on top
of the metal base. The rug, also from Arkitektura,
is bordered with black leather, which echoes the
black painted-wood-framed windows throughout
the home. The dancing pattern on the rug is picked
up by the hand-splattered wallpaper, while the
vertical lines of the black-bordered draperies are
repeated in the unexpected wainscoting. A bronze
planter filled with preserved boxwood acts as an
organic piece of sculpture.