Going for Baroque Interior Designer Jul ie O’ Brien transforms a spacious, but nondescript home on Geist R eser voir into an artf ul show place f ul l of joie de vivre Written by Bridget Williams Photography by Eric Williams
Homes of distinction line the shore of Geist Reservoir. The one that caught the eye of Steve Cage, founder and chairman of Stratosphere Quality and RPMcollection.com, was certainly enviable for its spacious lot and wooded view across the water, but architecturally it was in need of emphasis and detail. Enter interior designer Julie O’Brien of the Julie O’Brien Design Group, who was tasked with creating a feeling of greater architectural prominence, as well as adding rooms to suit the need for casual family space. In French Baroque architecture, the corps de logis of a manor house contains the entry and the grandest and finest rooms. O’Brien employed this principal to rework the approach and entrance to the home. Whereas one previously entered through an ordinary front door and directly into a cavernous formal living room, one is now greeted with landscaped planting beds leading to a balustraded front verandah and an impressive limestone frontspiece topped with a mansard-style roof. Spiral topiaries in front of round windows are placed on either side of the archway leading to the front door.
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