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CommentsCurve Appeal
A designer’s fantasy home comes to life
By Jack Gordon
Photo by Jon Huelskamp, Landmark Photography
Bloyd wanted to create a house ideal for entertaining. “I have out-of-town family who visit, and I want to have company picnics and Christmas parties here,” she says. Hence the open floor plan and contemporary feel. The party-friendly butler’s area in the large kitchen is not a tucked-away pantry, but rather an inviting buffet space with sink, counter, wine rack, refrigerated drawers, and warming drawers.
But even terms like contemporary and open do not fully describe the effect of the imagination that shaped every detail of this dwelling—from the prominent 10-foot waterfall with koi pond in the courtyard to the adjoining swimming pool. Even the sightlines to both of those features from the house’s windows and overlooking decks were carefully arranged.
The interior is full of delightful surprises. “[Bloyd’s design] has two main things going on,” says builder Michael Halley. “One has to do with the relationship of spaces, inside and out. The other is differentiation. No two rooms are alike in terms of detailing, though it all blends together beautifully. Everything is an experience.
One of our new clients who has been in the home three times said, ‘It’s like eye candy. Every time I’m there I see something different.’”
Photo by Jon Huelskamp
Landmark Photography
Every room, every ceiling, and every roofline seems to contain a distinctive feature. A 20-foot coral keystone wall faces the entry. A 17-foot fireplace serves the great room. Over the granite-topped banquette off the kitchen, a chandelier descends from a large circular cutout in the ceiling. Even the main-floor powder room boasts an Asian-inspired, rice-paper chandelier descending from a floating circular soffit, while a custom acrylic ceiling fan in the office evokes a ship’s propeller.
Throughout the residence, walls are angled and soffits curved. The only plain rectangular spaces in the house, Bloyd says, are the elevator and the owner’s closet. Wherever wood or tiled floors meet carpeted areas, the demarcation lines are not straight but curved, like waves. The pattern occurs, for instance, between the kitchen and great room on the main floor, and also between the TV area and the bar/billiard room on the lower level.
The curves, the angles, and the wealth of stunning details conspire to disguise a fact that Bloyd reveals at the end of a tour. Because it sits on a narrow lot, the house is 190 feet long but only 30 feet wide. “People joked that it was going to be my doublewide trailer home,” she says.
Not anymore, they don’t.
Jack Gordon is an Eden Prairie freelance writer.
Builder
Halley’s Custom Homes, Inc.
Home location
Eden Prairie
Suppliers
Appollo Systems
The Brass Handle
Cabinet Concepts & Interiors
Cambria
Cartier Lighting
GE Builder Center
Hedberg Landscape & Masonry Supplies
Minneapolis Glass Company
RBC Tile & Stone
11 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
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