Landmarks  ·  2002–2004

Strict French Country

Bloomfield Hills · Hammond Beeby

Framed to an eighth of an inch, finished to a sixteenth

The entry court: a columned pavilion with a mansard roof and balustrade, and the long wing beside it

A hillside house in Bloomfield Hills, designed by Hammond Beeby in a disciplined French country idiom, and framed within a tolerance of an eighth of an inch. The finish work was held to a sixteenth. It remains the most exacting house we have built.

What made that possible was Detroit. Between 2002 and 2004 we had access to the most sophisticated trades, fabricators, and suppliers in the region, and taken together they are the finest in the world. Many were third-, fourth-, or fifth-generation shops, with lineages reaching back to the 1920s, when Detroit’s architecture and craftsmanship were the envy of the country.

A house like this is a record of those hands as much as of the drawings. Every joint that meets cleanly, every profile that runs true around a corner, is someone’s grandfather’s trade, practiced the way he taught it.

A crystal chandelier under a plaster medallion, seen through an arch
The porte-cochère, with its lantern-lit arch and cupola, looking through to the rear court
The salon: paneled walls, silk curtains at the arched French doors, parquet de Versailles underfoot
Iron lanterns on scrolled brackets against the limestone and slate
The terrace: limestone walls, iron lanterns, and a checkerboard of stone paving
The curved stair and its iron railing, seen through an arched opening
The entry chandelier in gilt bronze and crystal, before the fanlight
The hall, looking through to the dining room, with the stair curving up beside it

Architecture by Hammond Beeby.

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