32 | MAY 18 • 2023 

HOME

A

ll I knew was that I want-
ed a house on a lake, with 
Birmingham schools and didn’t 
want a subdivision,
” Mindy Roberts says 
of her house hunt in the early 1980s.
So she found a street on a map that fit 
that criteria and prowled it for two years 
until she found something affordable.
“I saw a man sweeping out his garage,
” 
she says. “Someone told me he was going 
to sell so we went up and said we’ll write 
a check right now, without even going 
inside.
”
The house on Walnut Lake was 
more like a cottage, with an unfinished 
Michigan basement and walls that were 

Over the course of 
30 years, a lakeside 
cottage transforms into 
a waterfront dream 
home, one of six on this 
year’s Temple Israel 
Sisterhood House Tour. 
Here’s a sneak peek. 

LYNNE KONSTANTIN 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Lake 
 
 
Life

Details

The Temple Israel 
Sisterhood House tour 
is back. The 27th tour 
will feature six homes 
in the community 10 
a.m.-4 p.m. May 31. 
$30 advance; $35 on 
the day of the tour. For 
tickets, (office losed 
on Wednesdays); 
temple-israel.org/ 
sisterhood

TOP: The eat-in kitchen space doubles as a dining room, with a table that swivels to seat more guests. 
“Their old layout was restrictive in terms of how they could entertain family and friends, and the kitchen was 
really narrow,” Weinstein says. “It’s still narrow, but we made it bigger and gave them more function and 
storage space. We wanted this to be casual but elegant. We didn’t go all the way to the ceiling with cabinets 
so that it would look more like a furniture wall with thin waterfall legs framing it.” A lighter wood palette, 
with European white oak flooring and blonde cabinets, adds to the lakeside vibe. The tall cabinet hides 
one of two refrigerators; this one, storing mostly beverages, has a handle on the left side so that it can be 
reached from the table. ABOVE: When Roberts toured Weinstein’s home, one of the first things she noticed 
was her Fornasetti collection and she felt a kinship. “I also love Fornasetti, but never had a place to display 
it,” Roberts says. “I’m really not fancy, with fine china, but I love this and wanted to show it.” Tom Myers of 
Gallery Steel in Waterford gave the collection a home with a pair of steel cabinets. The island and counters 
are topped with durable Cristallo quartzite, providing the look of marble without staining or etching. The 
mirror-tiled backsplash from Ann Sacks picks up the color of the cabinets while adding some shimmer.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARTIN VECCHIO