From Colonial to Contemporary
Inside an ASID Showcase Home
There’s a certain expectation that goes along with a stately turn-of-the-century colonial in a quaint Minneapolis lake neighborhood. One house in particular, on Fremont Avenue South, appears quite traditional—serenely welcoming visitors ascending its steps. But once inside the door, its cover is blown. No Victorian embellishments at this address. Here, a vibrant contemporary motif lives happily inside the bones of a quiet traditional home.
Located on Lake Harriet, this year’s showcase home designed by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) may look like a traditional colonial home from the exterior, but it’s anything but inside. The home had already been remodeled several times and lacked continuity—with each room a different style ranging from Italian to Tudor.
By unifying the design and maintaining a contemporary feel throughout the home, designers were able to establish the continuity that was so desired. Small rooms and a dark foyer on the first floor were transformed into a vast open space with more breathing room. The small stairway leading upstairs made way for a beautiful staircase that rose from the basement through several floors—with open risers that contributed to the airy feeling. Tiny windows were replaced with more expansive windows to accentuate the striking view of the lake.
Since 1985, the Minnesota chapter of ASID has completed 14 of these showcase homes, giving the public a rare look into the complexities of renovating the entire home from top to bottom. This year’s home belongs to Pat Fallon, an icon in the advertising world. Fallon’s agency, Fallon Worldwide, has created ad campaigns for Sony, BMW and Citibank (remember the identity theft commercials?), to name a few.
So, what happens when you gather more than 120 interior designers, architects and contractors to completely renovate a home?
The Selection Process
Each year in June, the selection process begins. The ASID committee members may already know of potential candidates for the home, or they may have received calls from homeowners who are interested in the project. From this point, the committee relies on two important criteria to determine which home will be chosen.
“First of all, it has to be geographically desirable,” explains Suzanne Goodwin, president of the Minnesota chapter of ASID. “We want to get the greatest number of people through the home, so we want to be centrally located. Homes on a lake are a huge draw for us. Number two, we need to have a homeowner who can afford to do this—and that is a big part of the picture—because generally speaking, these renovations are well over a million dollars.”
Collaborating with the Client
As all designers know, getting to know their client’s personality and style from the get-go is essential to producing a quality finished product. Before the project even began, the committee spent some time with Fallon getting to know his design preferences.
“Pat Fallon was obviously very involved,” says Goodwin. “He gave us a CD of designs he liked, and he also tore out photos from different magazines and said ‘I like this’ or ‘I hate this.’ We were able to put that on a CD and give it to our designers so they got to know him. We also went into his existing house and took pictures of his artwork so we could hand that to the designers—so they had a pretty good feel of who he was and what he liked.”
From there, the steering committee assigned each room to designers who later presented their ideas back to the committee. This committee is responsible for making sure the project stays on track, giving designers their input along the way. After the designers had reached a consensus with the committee, the designs were presented to the homeowner. “There were a few little tweaks that occurred after Pat saw it,” explains Goodwin, “but basically we were almost there when we made our first presentation to him.”
The Goals
While Fallon’s personal style and needs were reflected in the interior of the home, he did not want to desecrate the exterior. He wanted the home to fit in with the existing neighborhood. With five children and an assortment of family pets, Fallon’s personal style is fairly clean.
“We were kind of nervous because we don’t like the word ‘contemporary,’ but one of the things to come out of this project is we were able to tell the public that contemporary can be a soft-edge,” says Goodwin. “It can be comfortable, it can fit your needs and it flows. The majority of people don’t understand contemporary. From the design aspect, that was one of our main goals—to enlighten the public about what contemporary was or could be.”
Wide Open Spaces
One of the most challenging parts of the design was to create a more open feel in this traditional colonial home. Working with Domain Architecture and Design, the committee designed an addition, created a suspended staircase that emerges through all three and a half floors and used i-beams to truly create that open feeling. “When you walk in that front door, you look through and out the house to Lake Harriet,” says Goodwin.
Seeking Input
While the ASID showcase home is designed through a committee, it can be quite different remodeling an entire home as a single designer, as Goodwin explains. “If you are a designer out there on your own, you need to have someone you can talk to and knock ideas off of—at least that’s what I find when I’m designing on my own. … We’ve been doing this now for 14 years, so we’re a pretty well-oiled machine. But every year, we have a wrap-up meeting and discuss what worked this year and what didn’t work. We’re always in the process of refining, and I think to the project’s betterment.”
Goodwin’s advice to the designer? “If you are a designer doing a complete house, you need to work with your architects and your contractors. We found a once-a-week meeting works best for us, where everyone goes through where they’re at and what they need from you. Ultimately, you’re going to have much happier clients.”
Continuity
With more than 120 designers, architects and contractors involved in the entire process, one would think maintaining a consistent look throughout the home would be nearly impossible. But the designers on the Fallon house unified those separate design elements by adhering to the same color palette; using the same color paint on each floor and using consistent flooring throughout the home; and creating window fashions that look the same but use different fabrics.
“We strive for continuity,” says Goodwin. “We want to make sure there’s surprise in every room, but that it doesn’t look as though somebody was given permission to go out into left field. There’s a ton of ways to make sure we establish that continuity.”
It’s safe to say the designers accomplished their goal—creating a home that fits into the neighborhood, yet proclaims a style of its own.
There’s a certain expectation that goes along with a stately turn-of-the-century colonial in a quaint Minneapolis lake neighborhood. One house in particular, on Fremont Avenue South, appears quite traditional—serenely welcoming visitors ascending its steps. But once inside the door, its cover is blown. No Victorian embellishments at this address. Here, a vibrant contemporary motif lives happily inside the bones of a quiet traditional home.
Located on Lake Harriet, this year’s showcase home designed by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) may look like a traditional colonial home from the exterior, but it’s anything but inside. The home had already been remodeled several times and lacked continuity—with each room a different style ranging from Italian to Tudor.
By unifying the design and maintaining a contemporary feel throughout the home, designers were able to establish the continuity that was so desired. Small rooms and a dark foyer on the first floor were transformed into a vast open space with more breathing room. The small stairway leading upstairs made way for a beautiful staircase that rose from the basement through several floors—with open risers that contributed to the airy feeling. Tiny windows were replaced with more expansive windows to accentuate the striking view of the lake.
Since 1985, the Minnesota chapter of ASID has completed 14 of these showcase homes, giving the public a rare look into the complexities of renovating the entire home from top to bottom. This year’s home belongs to Pat Fallon, an icon in the advertising world. Fallon’s agency, Fallon Worldwide, has created ad campaigns for Sony, BMW and Citibank (remember the identity theft commercials?), to name a few.
So, what happens when you gather more than 120 interior designers, architects and contractors to completely renovate a home?
The Selection Process
Each year in June, the selection process begins. The ASID committee members may already know of potential candidates for the home, or they may have received calls from homeowners who are interested in the project. From this point, the committee relies on two important criteria to determine which home will be chosen.
“First of all, it has to be geographically desirable,” explains Suzanne Goodwin, president of the Minnesota chapter of ASID. “We want to get the greatest number of people through the home, so we want to be centrally located. Homes on a lake are a huge draw for us. Number two, we need to have a homeowner who can afford to do this—and that is a big part of the picture—because generally speaking, these renovations are well over a million dollars.”
Collaborating with the Client
As all designers know, getting to know their client’s personality and style from the get-go is essential to producing a quality finished product. Before the project even began, the committee spent some time with Fallon getting to know his design preferences.
“Pat Fallon was obviously very involved,” says Goodwin. “He gave us a CD of designs he liked, and he also tore out photos from different magazines and said ‘I like this’ or ‘I hate this.’ We were able to put that on a CD and give it to our designers so they got to know him. We also went into his existing house and took pictures of his artwork so we could hand that to the designers—so they had a pretty good feel of who he was and what he liked.”
From there, the steering committee assigned each room to designers who later presented their ideas back to the committee. This committee is responsible for making sure the project stays on track, giving designers their input along the way. After the designers had reached a consensus with the committee, the designs were presented to the homeowner. “There were a few little tweaks that occurred after Pat saw it,” explains Goodwin, “but basically we were almost there when we made our first presentation to him.”
The Goals
While Fallon’s personal style and needs were reflected in the interior of the home, he did not want to desecrate the exterior. He wanted the home to fit in with the existing neighborhood. With five children and an assortment of family pets, Fallon’s personal style is fairly clean.
“We were kind of nervous because we don’t like the word ‘contemporary,’ but one of the things to come out of this project is we were able to tell the public that contemporary can be a soft-edge,” says Goodwin. “It can be comfortable, it can fit your needs and it flows. The majority of people don’t understand contemporary. From the design aspect, that was one of our main goals—to enlighten the public about what contemporary was or could be.”
Wide Open Spaces
One of the most challenging parts of the design was to create a more open feel in this traditional colonial home. Working with Domain Architecture and Design, the committee designed an addition, created a suspended staircase that emerges through all three and a half floors and used i-beams to truly create that open feeling. “When you walk in that front door, you look through and out the house to Lake Harriet,” says Goodwin.
Seeking Input
While the ASID showcase home is designed through a committee, it can be quite different remodeling an entire home as a single designer, as Goodwin explains. “If you are a designer out there on your own, you need to have someone you can talk to and knock ideas off of—at least that’s what I find when I’m designing on my own. … We’ve been doing this now for 14 years, so we’re a pretty well-oiled machine. But every year, we have a wrap-up meeting and discuss what worked this year and what didn’t work. We’re always in the process of refining, and I think to the project’s betterment.”
Goodwin’s advice to the designer? “If you are a designer doing a complete house, you need to work with your architects and your contractors. We found a once-a-week meeting works best for us, where everyone goes through where they’re at and what they need from you. Ultimately, you’re going to have much happier clients.”
Continuity
With more than 120 designers, architects and contractors involved in the entire process, one would think maintaining a consistent look throughout the home would be nearly impossible. But the designers on the Fallon house unified those separate design elements by adhering to the same color palette; using the same color paint on each floor and using consistent flooring throughout the home; and creating window fashions that look the same but use different fabrics.
“We strive for continuity,” says Goodwin. “We want to make sure there’s surprise in every room, but that it doesn’t look as though somebody was given permission to go out into left field. There’s a ton of ways to make sure we establish that continuity.”
It’s safe to say the designers accomplished their goal—creating a home that fits into the neighborhood, yet proclaims a style of its own.
