Indian Village mansion is English-style @ granite slabs

This handsome Tudor Revival house was designed in 1901 by William Stratton, husband of Pewabic Pottery founder Mary Chase Perry Stratton.Its in fine condition, inside and out, with an English-style formal garden in back to complement the English architecture.

The Strattons were champions of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the house is filled with the visible construction details that movement valued oak beams, built-in bookcases, decorative woodwork, leaded glass. And, of course, the fireplace front is Pewabic tile, a staple of Indian Village houses.

Three years ago when she moved to Detroit from Virginia, she fell in love with this house at first sight. Pulling up in a car on Seminole Street,Choose your favorite China Granite Countertops paintings from thousands of available designs. she looked and said, I am buying this house.In the foyer, the scroll-like pattern of the woodwork is just phenomenal, she said. I loved the living room. I thought the fireplace was stunning when I saw it. It was so beautiful, the different colors.

That large living room with its oak beams and a wall of bookcases has become the reading room, she said. My friends and my grandchildren love that room.Honablue has filled the house with English and French antiques. Her large art collection mixes traditional oil paintings of subjects like children and animals with vintage posters and African masks.

Her style had a large impact on the kitchen. She pulled out most of the ill-suited 1960s cupboards and filled their places with antique furniture like a large breakfront, used for storage.Even the cooktop is set into a marble-topped chest. That was my oldest sons dresser, she said. The mixed, vintage result seems to suit the house.This house has 17 rooms, including a third-floor ballroom, which is common in larger Indian Village homes.

One special spot is the long garden room or solarium, which runs the length of the house. It has a tile floor, three sides of windows and a large fireplace.Its very bright there, especially in winter, she said. We go eat in there or just sit and listen to music.Another is a large, round bay area that looks into the backyard. In this glass-walled cove,Browse our Granite slabs collection from the granitetrade.net! Honablue created a tableau of her grand piano, vintage paintings and African art.

The landing on the handsome staircase has a large window of diamond-design leaded glass next to a built-in window seat.Honablue also is responsible for the formal English garden in back, working with Greater Detroit Landscape. When she bought the house that area was a grassless dog run.Now its an English house with an English backyard, she said. I go out in the middle of the night and have tea.

Even the guest bath exudes character. An 18th-century stove serves as something of a mantel, fabric-draped and topped by Etruscan-era candlesticks. The towel bar came from the Queen Mary ocean liner.Naturally, some wondered whether, after nearly 40 years in a series of Central West End homes, the Holtzes could find happiness in a condo. Their move, about a year ago, was orchestrated by the octogenarian couples children.

While Barbara and her husband, Sumner, could sense the appeal of life without sprung roof tiles and other home-owning givens, Barbara, in particular, had always gone above and beyond to personalize the couples space. In their last home, for example, she hired a Kansas City artist who used to use eyeliners and rouge from Neiman Marcus to hand-paint the floors for a faux-marble, blush-colored result.

While that particular effect did not make the journey to suburbia, so much else did. With many walls now painted blush pink and their Persian vases still functioning as electrified lamps, the Holtzes surroundings continue to reflect a lifetime of exotic travel, ongoing curiosity and a love of acquisitions, whether from flea markets, alleyways or off-the-beaten-path merchants.

From a night of carousing in the Arab section of Jerusalem, the Holtzes retain the framed pages they bought from old books. From an Indonesian airport came a centuries-old female marionette,Shop for wholesale Granite countertops from China! thought to be clad in her original ceremonial robe.

The Holtzes space is likewise punctuated by artist Barbaras own work, including the paintings that helped her emerge from the loss of family members. In depictions of her parents, she sometimes movingly incorporates actual photos of their faces.