Custom Lighting for Custom Homes

The owners of this Michigan home knew their 12-acre site was perfect, having built a house on it when they were married 20 years ago. But the original house wasn't properly positioned to complement the park-like setting and views of a lake to the rear. This provided a logical starting point for architect Dominick Tringali.

“The lake was the key feature, so we lined up the [new] house with the views,” says Tringali, principal of Dominick Tringali Architects in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. He designed a 25,000-square-foot, French Country estate with several wings that maximize views and serve specific purposes for the family.

The octagonal foyer, with its elaborately detailed dome, provides a dramitic entry experience. The ceiling above the custom-made chandelier features a piece of stained glass, illuminated by LED lights that display the color spectrum on a timer system. Click Image For Enhanced View

But orientation wasn't the only issue the clients brought to the table. “They were uncomfortable with the lighting in their existing home,” says Grand Rapids, Mich.-based lighting designer Ron Hainer. “We needed to make sure they had enough light for their needs and also for cleaning purposes, which is often overlooked.” When Hainer got involved with the project, the architectural drawings were largely done but none of the detailed drawings, “so we were able to make some suggestions that influenced the interior architecture, such as adding coves for cove lighting.”

In a home of this size, good lighting controls are especially important. “The bigger the home, the less often people get to certain parts of that home,” Hainer says. “In this case, the kids are only around part of the time and their parents tend to stay on the main floor. They can make sure everything's turned off downstairs by pushing one button, and program the lights to come on automatically when they drive up to the house.”

Tringali observes, “Sometimes a lighting designer goes overboard and the technology overwhelms the house. Ron kept this home well-lit and at the same time, made the controls easy to use.”

Balancing Formal and Informal Space

Rather than sequestered in another part of the house, the media room is connected to three hubs of family activity: kitchen, hearth room and family room. Click Image For Enhanced View

Endeavoring to create a place where the clients and their children could spend time together, Tringali designed a media room that interacts with other first-floor living spaces, rather than being segregated from the rest of the house. The media room, hearth room and kitchen are adjacent to one another and serve as the home's informal core.

Family members enter the house from the garage and pass through a large mudroom. A staircase near the mudroom leads to the second-floor bedrooms and the lower-level recreational and therapy areas, which include a spa, billiards room and wine cellar. A covered terrace, a swimming pool and an outdoor living room are off the lower-level rooms.

The clients frequently host charity events and wanted their home to function well for entertaining. It certainly makes an impressive statement: From the front porch and vestibule, visitors enter an octagon-shape foyer highlighted by an ornately carved dome. The foyer's curved staircase leads to both the second floor and the lower level, and was designed with a large, open void to allow natural light to flood the area via windows that overlook the rear of the home. The staircase's central location gives guests access to the lower level directly from the front entrance during parties and events. To enhance circulation during parties, Tringali placed the living room directly opposite the foyer and the dining room just to the right of it.

The clients wanted an aquarium but not the fish, so an art-glass supplier etched fish and aquatic plants into seven layers of glass. Fiber-optic lighting brings the designs to life.  Photo by Zecchini Photography Click Image For Enhanced View

One of the home's most noteworthy features, says builder Doyle Mosher, is the lower-level wine room. “It's extraordinarily well-done, with a tasting room that sets up the wine cellar and sitting room beautifully.” Mosher, of Mosher, Dolan, Cataldo & Kelly in Birmingham, Mich., also finds the media room and library unique. “We've built a number of media rooms, but few have been of this size and scale,” he says (the room is about 20 feet wide by 30 feet deep). “And the library is two stories with a spiral stair leading up to the second floor and a two-story bay window overlooking the lake. There's a lot of hand carving in that room.”

On the far left side of the main floor is the couple's private retreat. “They wanted to be able to live in this home for the rest of their lives, so we put [the master suite] on the first floor,” Tringali says. Not unlike an upscale hotel suite, the master bedroom has a sitting room; a private, covered terrace; and his-and-her baths and walk-in closets. “Her” closet is two stories. In the hallway near “his” bath, a circular stair leads down to the spa, exercise room and massage room.

The kitchen's large bay window overlooks the motor court in front of the house. Stone surrounds the cooking grotto for a French villa effect. Click Image For Enhanced View

A specially designed, three-level garage is dedicated to the owner's collection of Corvettes. “He's one of the premier Corvette collectors in the area and has one of the first Corvettes ever built,” says the architect. “We went to the Corvette museum in Ohio and got some great ideas.” A lift moves the vehicles from the main floor to the lower level for mechanical work and washing. The client's office is on the upper level, overlooking the displays.

The lighting in this Corvette “museum” is similar to what you'd see in an automobile showroom. “It's a two-circuit system,” says Hainer. “Metal halide does a great job and adds a lot of punch, but it's not instant on, so we augmented that with some low-voltage MR-16 lights.” He used a detachable light fixture, rather than a permanent one, over the lift to allow clearance for the cars as they're raised and lowered.

Illuminating Ideas

All lights in this dining room are easily controlled from a wall-mounted keypad. Click Image For Enhanced View

Interior designer Jacquie Traub of Rochester Hills, Mich., estimates that it took her seven or eight months just to select the lighting fixtures. “I needed some major custom pieces, and it was quite a task to get fixtures that would coordinate with each other and were the right scale,” says Traub. For the popcorn stand off the media room, “I wanted something really fun and funky. Ron supplied a light source made up of different squares that fluctuate in color and intensity.”

Hainer also employed a few special effects such as RGB LED (color-changing LED lights) behind leaded stained glass. He used a white LED fixture to underlight an onyx countertop, and fiber optics to create a faux aquarium for a sitting area near the billiards room.

“We looked into having an aquarium with live fish, but the expense was pretty extreme,” says Traub. Instead, Williams Art Glass Studio in Oxford, Mich., etched fish and plant life into seven layers of glass to give the aquarium depth. Fiber-optic lighting in different colors illuminates each pane of glass. Mosher notes the tremendous amount of decorative plaster work done in the house — particularly in the massive dome in the foyer, which measures 12 feet by 10 feet. Three tiers of plaster were designed into the truss system. “The dome took a year to construct because every piece was designed and executed by hand,” he says.

The home took three years to build, which is relatively quick for such a large, complex project. “We are highly administrative and systems-oriented, so the processes we use allow us to build large homes on a timely basis,” says Mosher. “And this particular home grew substantially in scope from the standpoint of interior detailing, so all of that had to be integrated into our processes.”

Considering the scale of the project, Mosher says, there were few building challenges. “We had very good clients who were decisive and easy to work with. It's one of those relationships that happens only in one out of 10 projects, where the architect, interior designer, client and contractor are all of the same mind.”

The stone and stucco exterior has a timelessness that will allow it to age well, says architect Dominick Tringali. Smooth and rough hand-selected and cut stone resemble the golden tones of old castles and estates in France. Click Image For Enhanced View

The poolside outdoor living room has a fireplace, making it a comfortable refuge on cool nights. Click Image For Enhanced View

The grand terrace, with its hand-laid stone walls, wraps around the rear of the home. Click Image For Enhanced View