Detroit Design

As part of the annual Detroit Design Awards competition, you're invited to vote for your favorite overall home. Just view the images here and indicate your preference. The Readers' Choice will be revealed in the Summer 2021 Design Awards issue.

View the entries below and select a button on the left to indicate your favorite. Enter your name and e-mail address and then submit your vote!

*Name and e-mail address are required to prevent ballot stuffing.

The main level of this modern Prairie-style home features a dining room with a bar, an open floor plan including a kitchen, living room, nook, and private den. The upper level includes a large master suite, three additional bedrooms, two additional baths, a laundry room, and a loft. The daylight lower level offers a family room, bar, exercise room, walk-in wine room, golf simulator, bedroom suite, and sauna. Other features include floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass floor on the upper landing with a large skylight above, delivering additional light to the space below.

Located in a post-war neighborhood with protected woodlands to the north, this residence negotiates between two conditions: the urban street front and a retreat immersed in nature. Main-floor living connects to nature with curated views of the woodlands and an amplified open floor plan. The lower level includes three bedrooms and secondary living for young adults and visiting extended family. The main floor serves as a seamless space between kitchen, dining, and living areas. The top floor provides a personal master retreat with indoor/outdoor connections to nature through clerestory windows, a yoga deck, and a fully glazed north wall.

This European Villa fully integrates the architecture, interior design, and beautiful lake setting, creating a home that’s artful and inspiring. A palette of muted gray hues, beautifully counterbalanced with shimmering silver-and-gold metallic elements and warm wood tones, results in an ambiance that’s glamorous, elegant, warm, and inviting. Reclaimed timber-beamed ceilings play on the custom-stained tung-oil-finished wide-plank European white oak floors, imbuing a welcoming charm. An artfully backlit curved-glass bar is the showpiece of the entertainment area, while a “Turkish spa” with mosaic tilework is the centerpiece of the “mind-body-soul” spa/wellness area. A Control4 Smart Home system fully automates the lighting, audio, climate control, and security.

This 6,000-square-foot home embraces the notion that contemporary design can, indeed, be very warm and livable. With the mix of beautiful stone and wood found throughout the home, each room continues the story of subtle, livable elegance.

The Fortress of Fun was created for an artist and her husband who desired a live/work urban oasis where they could create their custom furniture and art and show it in a gallery setting. Live theatrical and operatic performances also needed to be accommodated. The rear of the home features giant windows, bringing in light and nature. The spaces are open and adaptable to the flow of the events the couple hosts, yet remain comfortable for day-to-day living. Furnishings are a combination of vintage pieces and the couple’s own designs, creating an atmosphere that’s sleek, unique, colorful, and fun.

The design concept of this residence came from a series of intersecting volumes, each containing specific programs that, together, create a dynamic form. The outdoor patio and pool become the focal point, with the built structures wrapping around. Support areas such as the laundry, pantry, and powder room are located near the garage, while family gathering spaces are very open. A covered walkway at the entry protects residents and guests from the elements; it’s flanked above by timber beams, creating a pergola that projects shadows to the surrounding surfaces. The exterior materials include thermally modified wood, metal panel, and brick.

Viewed from the street, this contemporary Mid-century Modern home presents a long, sleek silhouette with undulating cantilevered roofs, framed with all-steel beams around the outer perimeters. Warm, tinted-glass windows are interrupted by large walls of horizontal bricks and gray textured concrete. The dramatic lake side of the residence presents massive cantilevered roofs over the great room and outdoor deck. The foyer entrance roof has been removed to achieve a higher ceiling, while continuing on the sides of the room and projecting through the outer glass wall. This home utilizes many materials to create a dramatic yet inviting environment.

This single-story modern Farm-style home offers panoramic views of pristine woodlands. The central core of the home is designed around a private courtyard pool/lanai entertaining area. The front gallery, with its 18-foot ceilings, acts as a spine through the home, allowing access to the bedrooms, guest entry, and stair hall, which leads to the lower level. The main living/dining/kitchen space has soaring ceilings and custom beamed trusses. The outdoor living area is as important as the interior. The lanai, with its cathedral ceilings and beam trusses, is equipped with a full kitchen and bar, and a family/dining room with a fireplace.

Crisp and clean lines, bold forms, and contrasting color themes set a baseline that allows flourishes of traditional detail to stand apart and reveal the old soul of this home’s underlying design themes. The color theme is very much black and white, with black window frames contrasting the white wall surfaces inside and out. The soaring vault of the great room ceiling allows a large window to fill the living spaces with natural light. Filled with custom-designed millwork details and built-ins, the home exudes rich detail throughout in an understated elegance, while maintaining the casual and livable vibe of a family home.

This magnificent one-level French Renaissance-style home beckons visitors through a wrought-iron gate, and into the grass-and-stone auto court. Two ornate stone garage wings create a warm welcome as one approaches the limestone steps and elaborate canopy of the front entrance. Twin 10-foot-high iron-and-glass doors open into a stunning foyer. Outdoors, there’s a spectacular mosaic swimming pool, which is flanked by the family room, master suite, and two covered patios with an outdoor kitchen and fireplace. The entire residence is veneered with Florida limestone. Multiple high-arched windows and passages around the rear of the home offer sweeping views of the ocean channel and beyond.

This home was designed to be welcoming and comfortable, as well as impressive. The homeowners say the end result is a joy to experience daily.

This modern Farmhouse looks like it’s been around for at least a hundred years, but the new-build replaced an existing home. Charming details define the exterior, which exudes character with a black-and-white palette and plenty of Southern flair. With a mix of features like a wraparound porch and a metal roof, traditional meets modern for the perfect combination. Double doors create a welcoming entry, while coffered ceilings set a cozy tone. Timeless design elements include wood floors, warm tones, and distinctive spaces. This home has all the bells and whistles that make it look and feel both luxurious and livable.

The horizontal and vertical lines of the architecture are delineated with stone, wood, metal, and glass that are intermixed to create harmony and blur the boundaries between the exterior and interior environments. A unique feature of this home is the linear 48-foot x 7-foot reflecting pool that runs alongside — and interlocks with — the stone entry portico and entry gallery, a sculptural work of art that reflects the ever-changing beauty of the landscape and introduces a spiritual water element into the design. An Asian-inspired aesthetic and a Mid-century Modern style are integrated to create an environment that’s simultaneously balanced and vibrant.

This organic Prairie-style ranch home is sited on a grassy knoll that gently rolls down to meadowland. Strong intersecting horizontal and vertical lines root the home to the land, while the distinctive and unifying low-sloping metal roof and deep-overhanging eaves create a sheltering aura. Planter boxes extend the energy of the architecture into the landscape, and bands of windows accentuate the horizontality and connect the exterior and interior environments. Warm and cool tones play throughout the spaces, derived from the changing colors of the sky and counterbalancing the warm organic wood tones. Slate flooring sweeps through the main spaces, unifying them.

This lakeside, Shingle-style home serves as a comfortable setting for large family gatherings. The architectural design employs two flanking four-car garage wings that act as retaining walls to create a level motor court entry into the main level. Traditional cottage-style interiors are designed to provide a casual and comfortable feel, with the familiarity of past vacations to northern Michigan. The exterior design takes cues from traditional American Shingle-style architecture in an original composition of rustic stone and shingle siding. The architecture is symbolic of the strength of tradition, and anchors the retreat for this client’s legacy.

The exterior of this home is a flawless blend of smooth limestone block, flush metal panels, steel, and glass. The large overhangs combined with the flat roof, horizontal metal trellises, and canopies all enhance the linear look. The interior has an open and airy plan, high ceilings with walls of floor-to-ceiling glass, and corner glass, accented with exposed steel and wood. The entry is the most impressive feature; the two-story glass foyer atrium allows an unobstructed panoramic view of the rear wooded acreage. The main kitchen contains minimal appliances, and a service kitchen is tucked behind the kitchen for larger parties and gatherings.

This modern Farmhouse-inspired home embodies everything you would want your cottage getaway to include; it’s built for complete comfort and ease of entertainment. The grand entrance reveals a curved, paneled staircase leading up to the guest bedrooms, while the first-floor master features an enormous bath and shower. The kitchen is a chef’s dream, and the lower level has an enormous bar, as well as a private wine room with a revolving glass door and custom-made cabinetry. The elegance of this home is very subtle yet refined; it’s the perfect combination for those who appreciate easy living and elevated design.

This contemporary Prairie-style lake house is beautifully sited, enabling all of the primary spaces to enjoy panoramic views of the tranquil lake. A lake-inspired color palette of gray, white, and sand hues, with a whisper of blue, creates a serene ambiance, while the warm wood elements throughout the home imbue a welcoming aura. The open stairway, in the core of the home, unifies the open-floor-plan spaces and becomes a sculptural piece of modern art. An infinity-edge pool that appears to cascade into the lake interlinks with the architecture of the lakeside terrace, heightening the seamlessness between the interior, exterior, and the surrounding landscape.

While this house was very attractive on the outside, the interior was thoroughly dated. As a result, the whole house needed to be dissected. A poorly designed brick-and-tile fireplace dividing the family/breakfast rooms was the first thing to go, while all of the floors that sported shag carpet were replaced with oak tongue-and-groove, to make way for beautiful rugs. A tired master bath is now a sexy, warm, functional space. The lower level was finished with an entertainment space and rebuilt fireplace, bar, pool table room, wine cellar, workout room, a bedroom with a full bath, and more. The difference is night and day!

Leaving behind a traditional home, this family was ready to build their dream home. No detail was overlooked — from custom cabinetry in the kitchen and throughout all five bathrooms to custom furnishings, and down to the final floor coverings and accessories. These homeowners were looking for a transitional, sophisticated luxe atmosphere and weren’t afraid of color or materials. With the freedom to take advantage of everything from deep/dark tones to mixed metals and glass, in addition to the use of patterns and textures, their vision was beautifully brought to life.

Completed in 2019, this home features traditional woodworking and architectural details presented in a contemporary fashion. The goal was to construct a balanced home that maintains a timeless appeal while achieving the owner's design criteria.

Every day is like a vacation at this year-round lakeside home. The living spaces and master suite have expansive views of the lake, while the stairway in the glass-walled surround brings natural light into the kitchen and upper hall spaces. The light bouncing off the water dances on the hand-cast concrete countertops in the kitchen, providing an ever-changing kaleidoscope of reflections. The living, dining, and kitchen spaces are open to one another, and entertaining flows out to the deck and grille area. A covered terrace at the barbecue area provides shade for outdoor dining and stunning sunset views.

This European Tuscan Villa presents an aura of enduring beauty and permanence. Thoughtful attention to authentic Old World European detailing is interwoven throughout the blend of spacious and intimate spaces that beckon exploration, arousing an awareness of and appreciation for the magnificence and agelessness of the spaces as they gradually unfold. Stone courtyard walls of rugged Cortona fieldstone define quaint areas that replicate the atmosphere of charming European village squares, while extending the architecture into the land. Extensive covered loggias and open-air terraces, accessed from a succession of French doors, create a seamless interconnectedness between the interior and exterior spaces.