Not Your Father’s Playhouse

October 1, 2000
Luxury Home Builder

How many kids would like to have a full-scale Italianate playhouse, complete with trellises and a cupola, in their backyard? Well, three lucky kids are now proud homeowners of such an elaborate "home," and thousands of other children will benefit.

A Michigan architectural firm worked in conjunction with builders, trades and suppliers to provide three luxury play houses for a charity auction, and the adults had as much fun building them as the kids will have using them.

"It turned into something more elaborate than we thought, especially for the builder. But we had fun getting as creative as we could with them," says Dominick Tringali of Dominick Tringali Associates Architects and Planners, Inc. of Bloomfield Hills, Mich. "We started with plans to do one dollhouse, which then grew to a playhouse, which then got bigger, then it snowballed into three full-scale playhouses. If the mall where we displayed them were any bigger, we would have gone even further with them."

The playhouses were built for a charity auction to benefit four area children’s charities, including the Beaumont Pediatric Cancer Foundation. The houses raised more than $150,000 in a black-tie event. The stable shingle style playhouse (at left) fetched $45,000.

Tringali partnered with area builder John Richards Homes, and received great support from local lumberyards and contractors, who also donated materials and services. "When the contractors couldn’t afford to donate everything, we paid them for their time and they donated materials," says Tringali. The interiors of these playhouses belie their scaled-down exteriors, with wallpaper, curtains, daybeds, Adirondack tables and chairs, upholstered windowseats and handpainted interiors.

"We totally decked these houses out," says Tringali. "A local artist handpainted the interiors and we put real windows in them. The Italianate playhouse has 32 windows."

The playhouses were displayed in conjunction with a Home and Garden Show sponsored by the Somerset Mall. The French Country, Stable Shingle Style and Italianate designs had to be reassembled in a puzzle-like manner after bringing them through the 128×128 mall doorway. Crews had to work overnight while the mall was closed.

These playhouses cost more than $50,000 each to construct, and generated a lot of interest. "We got a lot of calls after the event from people wanting us to do these for them, but once they found out how expensive they were, they kind of backed off," says Tringali.

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