STYLE

URBAN DREAM

Junior Symphony Guild's Showhouse goes with more edge for the urban elite style

If you have ever redecorated your home and were frustrated by budget or by compromising between various style preferences, you can under-stand the appeal of the Junior Symphony Guild's Showhouse. This yearly project, which raises money through parties and sale of the house's interior elements for children's music programs, doesn't just show you what you could do with unlimited resources. It surpasses that, showing how interior design can be an art-- and what a home could look like if you commanded a fleet of talented designers and held them to your vision.

This year the Junior Symphony Guild (JSG) chose the Porter Mansion-- 975 Grant St.-- as its Showhouse. Denver's finest interior designers competed to decorate various rooms in the house, and were chosen by JSG based on their portfolios. This year's theme, "A Portrait of Urban Family Living," directed the designers towards a strong modern look through-out-- clean lines, neutral tones in most rooms, and a focus on contemporary art.

"We usually do traditional houses. This year, we went with a more urban, contemporary feel for a real family," said Sandy Magyar, a member of JSG's all-volunteer Showhouse committee.

"Urban Family Living" does not mean this place looks anything like your friend's loft with the steel table. The clean lines in the Porter Mansion radiate luxury, and nothing looks spare: visitors are greeted by a warm terra-cotta entryway with oversized leather chairs and a babbling wall fountain. The dining room, living room, and kitchen are all massive, and the former two have a very formal quality that creates a sort of pre-guest hush.

The dining room, instead of having one very large table, boasts two still-very-large round ones, black and shiny like obsidian. The choice asks questions: would you use the smaller one in day-to-day life, or the larger, or not eat in the dining room at all, except for guests? Could you organize those guests-- at "your" table or the other table-- according to how much you liked them, as a medieval king might do?

More comfortable, although no less spectacular, are some of the smaller rooms. A door at the far end of the living room leads to a smoking chamber, done in heavy reds and golds with a Turkish feel to the draperies. Apair of little Asian slippers rests in a corner. On the second floor, a son's bedroom full of maps and elegant wood furniture leads out to a golden-yellow sleeping porch reminiscent of a boy's camp cabin, with a wooden ski as a wall rack for little objects, a single-mattress wooden bed from New England, and a little white bookcase with chipped paint. An absolutely brilliant media room is done up as a cinema, complete with individual black leather seats, a neon "Now Showing" sign, and a nook full of jars of movie candy.

And all the bathrooms are gems. Each room turns up captivating treasures, from the laundry room's painted scissor on a ribbon on one wall, to the contemporary art in the master bedroom and other rooms

The guest's suite on the third floor has an arresting series of photographs. Neon-colored simple forms stand out on a black background. Artists Natasha Siedenich and Tom McIntyre mounted the photos on boards and then brushed them with polyurethane or shellac, giving them a painterly appearance and adding depth. Both are local artists who went to Metro and are now in school out east.

The entire guest's suite displays particularly strong, modern design, and feels the most "edgy" of all the rooms. It centers around an unconventional pale-colored bed, a rough rectangle with raised fuzzy cubes at two corners.

"Rather than a bed, we designed something that could also be used as a lounging area," said Roger Paul Bailey of HAO Design, who designed the suite. "I tried to make [the suite] as much of retreat as anything else, rather than just an area to be used when guests come."

The master bedroom, designed by New Age Design, contains several strong pieces, including paintings by Christina Chalmers and Dodi Klutznick, sculpture by Lloyd Anderson, and photographs by Tahvory Leonard.

When the showing is over, much of the art in the Porter Mansion, like the other Showhouse furnishings, may be purchased. The mansion will go back to being a residence for Bill and Penelope Euker, and their two children.

One wouldn't expect people who could afford such a home (regardless of how they normally furnish it) to participate in the renovation of it to prepare it for the show. The owners already had to move out for several months-- work began on the house last summer, according to Magyar.

But Bill Euker, a petroleum geologist with two companies in the oil business, spent a great deal of time helping with the nuts-and-bolts of the renovation, such as staining some stairwell trim last Wednesday. The Eukers bought the Porter Mansion in August 1996, at which point Penelope and Bill began working to make it a suitable project for JSG to consider as a Showhouse. Previously, the house had belonged to the Denver public school system as spillover office space.

--Kate Williamson

photos by Gary Stefanski

The twenty-room Showhouse opens to the public for a $15 fee April 21, and can be viewed until May 13, Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 3 pm, and Sundays noon to 3 pm On Wednesdays, the mansion stays open until 7 pm, with designers on hand to discuss their work.

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