30 January 31 • 2019
jn

continued from page 29

Benji 
Rosenzweig

might only recognize from our 
grandmothers’
 anecdotes and 
the scenes of B. Altman in The 
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. 
Over time, the space in the 
Park Shelton doubled and moved 
into prized, Woodward-facing 
storefronts. Frida was born, 
another shop featuring colorful, 
bohemian clothing and copious 
references to artist Frida Kahlo, 
who famously lived in the Park 
Shelton with Diego Rivera while 
he worked on his iconic DIA fres-
coes. Lutz was thrilled and just 
beginning to breathe easier. 

RETAIL RESURGENCE
That’
s when, in 2017, real estate 
agent Benji Rosenzweig was sit-
ting in a retail strategy meeting 
in the Fisher Building office of 
the Platform, Peter Cumming’
s 
real estate group that had recently 
purchased the building. They 
were talking about their vision 
for a creative combination of spe-
cial national retail (like the City 
Bakery that opened in 2018 — the 
first location for the cult favorite 
outside of New York and Tokyo) 
and energetic, 
community-build-
ing local entre-
preneurs creating 
magnets of unique 
experiences. 
Benji immedi-
ately thought of 
Rachel and started 
talking about her 
and pulling up her store’
s social 
media to show Peter and his part-

ner, Dietrich Knoer, who stopped 
the meeting and said, “Go talk to 
her today and let her know we 
want her in the Fisher Building.
” 
And so, promptly dispatched, 
Rosenzweig drove down to the 
Park Shelton to sell Lutz on the 
idea. This new, friendly little 
Jewish mafia won Lutz over, shar-
ing their conviction that there was 
no one better to do justice to the 
ground-floor arcade space occu-
pied from the late 1920s-1970s by 
“Julie’
s,
” a two-story dress shop. 
Lutz says with a sigh, “I didn’
t 
want to open another store, but I 
really wanted to save that room.
” 
The first thing they did, per 
usual, was peek under the drop 
ceiling. Once again, arches with 
intricate moldings were on the 
other side. What else? Lutz inven-
tories the architectural details she 
painstakingly preserved. “There 
were two-story beveled mirrors 
with glass rosettes; there was a 
fireplace, this gorgeous spiral 
staircase, bronze elevator doors 
with carvings of ribbons, unlike 
anything I’
ve ever seen.
” 
Preserved is actually an under-
statement. With the help of artist 
Teresa DeRue of Paintworks 
Detroit, Lutz transformed the 
store into a masterpiece. They 
selected a Cinderella-esque color 
palette and set about adding intri-
cate details and sourcing the per-
fect chandeliers (which Lutz still 
doesn’
t think she got quite right). 
“I wanted to take the oppor-
tunity to celebrate beauty for the 
sake of beauty,
” she says. “We 

don’
t build public spaces like that 
anymore.
” 
The result is a jaw-dropping, 
completely transporting portal 
into the early 20th century. One 
doesn’
t know where to look first: 
the glittering chandeliers, the gold 
mirrors, racks of colorful dresses 
(ranging from modest workwear 
to sparkly, floor-length numbers), 
towering stands of top hats, odd-
ities like bejeweled purses shaped 
like pagodas, fancy embossed 
stationery full of swear words, 
anddevotional candles featuring 
illustrations of James Baldwin and 
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 
Along with the flagship 
Peacock Room, Lutz also runs 
Yama out of the Fisher Building. 
Yama offers streamlined, sleek 
and simple women’
s fashions.
The interior design is in step 
with the larger setting of the 
Fisher Building and New Center. 
Built in the early-20th century 
around the GM headquarters 
in Cadillac Place, across Grand 
Boulevard, and with the premise 
this was a thriving business cen-
ter, densely packed with offices 
and homes for white-collar 
employees and executives, the 
neighborhood’
s density took a 
serious hit when GM moved to 
the Renaissance Center in 1996. 
Only in the last few years is 
New Center starting to look like 
its former and future self. But 
a chicken-and-egg game keeps 
storefronts empty: Will the retail 
development and amenities come 
first or will their consumers? 

“I didn’
t want to 
open another store, 
but I really wanted 
to save that room. 
I wanted to take the 
opportunity to 
celebrate beauty 
for the sake of beauty. 
We don’
t build public 
spaces like that 
anymore.” 

— 
RACHEL LUTZ

arts&life

SYLVIA JARRUS