Most renovations have a back story: the need to refresh a stale look, to enlarge the kitchen, to rip out the flocked wallpaper in the living room. The renovation of an apartment on Belle Isle in Miami Beach for the design maven Susan Grant Lewin had several back stories: to show off her collection of furniture, to find a way to open up a view, to make room for a grand piano, and to make it all accessible to her husband, Hal Lewin, who uses a wheelchair. The primary text: it had to be done stylishly.
“Handicapped accessible doesn’t mean it has to look like Mt. Sinai,” Ms. Lewin says.
Those who have visited Mt. Sinai will see that indeed it doesn’t. The Lewins bought the two-bedroom apartment on a high floor with a terrace overlooking Biscayne Bay because of its vast footprint, some 2,500 square feet. But the previous owner had made some unwise decisions. Foremost among them, Ms. Lewin felt, was chopping up the floorplan with different kinds of flooring: marble in the master bedroom, ceramic tile in the living room and for the kitchen “this 1970s coppery Formica-looking stuff, really bad,” she says.
“Having a homogeneous floor is like, duh, but it makes it like one big volume,” she says. She and her architect, Rene Gonzalez of Miami, used limestone throughout, including out onto the terrace.
In most cases, they were of a mind about the renovation, Gonzalez says. But she did have one concern, he says: “She said, ‘I know architects want to tear down everything, and I don’t want to do that.’ ”
Inevitably, the first sketch Gonzalez showed her involved serious demolition, taking down the walls around the bathroom.
“I take what my clients say seriously,” he says. “But when I looked at the plan, it made so much sense to open that up. Especially with Hal in a wheelchair. It had to be comfortable for him. Not only in the bathroom but everywhere.”
So the walls came down. The new, open-plan bathroom has custom Zen Weave tiles from Erin Adams through Ann Sacks, Duravit sinks and toilet, and Dornbracht faucets. Framing the bathroom are his-and-hers closets with woven stainless steel curtains from Cambridge Architectural Mesh of Cambridge, Maryland. “It’s really a beautiful sort of silky, sexy material,” Gonzalez says.
“The bathroom is completely tailored to Hal,” Ms. Lewin says. “Yet it’s so beautiful.”
Other accommodations for her husband: all of the light switches in the apartment are set low, the doorways were made extra wide for his wheelchair, the blinds on the windows operate by remote control and the kitchen was organized for ease of access when he perches on a stool that tucks under the counter. “My husband is a big cook,” Ms. Lewin says. “We’ll have people all cook together and everyone sort of piles into the kitchen.”
Her husband, a highly regarded musicologist and pianist, is also in command of the grand piano in the living room, located as well for easy access.
Ms. Lewin’s domain includes a home office. Her resume includes the titles of global creative director for the Formica Corporation, senior editor at House Beautiful, and design editor of Home Furnishings Daily. Today she runs an international marketing and public relations company from Miami and also has homes in New York City, and the Berkshires. Because of her South Beach residence, she represents many of Miami’s significant design talents.
Mr. Gonzalez and Ms. Lewin got to know each other through the renovation; he is now one of her clients.
“Susan is very sophisticated in terms of design and architecture and how people work,” he says. “She was up for whatever I suggested.”
One of his more unusual suggestions was to install panels of highly polished stainless steel at irregular intervals in the living room and dining room to reflect the views. While the terrace had views of the bay in two directions, the apartment windows all faced another building. “My immediate thought was, ‘We have to develop a strategy to bring the bay and the sky in,’” he says.
The apartment was never going to have “picture perfect, 20-foot-wide views,” he says. What he could do was offer glimpses of bay, skyline, sky. Nylon scrims alternate with the reflective surfaces to soften the acoustics for Mr. Lewin.
In one case, Ms. Lewin feels, he left things alone. The built-in wet bar, she said, is original, with an added pass-through Gonzalez suggested.
But there was more to it than that. Gonzalez: “We extended the counter in the kitchen out to the bar. We refinished the wood and added light fixtures, and we used more of the stainless steel scrim so you could close it off.”
This is what Gonzalez refers to as “working with something nice.”
Ms. Lewin inherited the dining room set from the previous owner. But it wasn’t just any dining room set. It was vintage Paul Evans Cityscape, with original upholstery, and a matching credenza built-in. Paul Evans pieces, popular in the ’70s, have been highly collectible for several years. Juan Carlos Cordero of Visiona, a vintage store in Miami that deals in Paul Evans, says that the Lewins’ dining room set may be worth less this year than a year ago, but could still bring $20,000 to $25,000 today. “Does she want to sell?” he asked.
“I liked the table and the buffet very much when I saw them,” Gonzalez says. “And because of the reflective surfaces, it all worked really nicely in the apartment.” The ball feet on the chairs, which are original, provide additional mobility for Mr. Lewin.
The Paul Evans dining set was almost the only new furniture the Lewins needed. Ms. Lewin already had her collection of vintage and collectible pieces, most of them Italian or Scandinavian: a platform bed by Vico Magistretti and Marimekko textiles; a sofa by Bruno Rainaldi for Crea, chairs by Frank Gehry (Cross Check), Gaetano Pesche (seen in the bathroom), Verner Panton (an original vintage Panton chair in yellow), a pair of Arne Jacobsen Series 7 chairs, and an orange plastic Pony chair by Eero Aarnio. “It makes me smile every time I look at it,” she says.
Her collecting is not limited to furniture. Her collections include dishware, artwork and artisan jewelry. (She is the author of One of a Kind: American Jewelry Today.) She says, “I know Rene is going to tell you I have too much stuff.”
Yes he did. “She has so many beautiful things, and she tends to collect it and bring it in, and bring it in, and bring it in,” he says. “I thought that my role there was to curate the pieces, and select the ones that worked best in the space.”
“It’s color in every direction,” says Gonzalez, who is famous for his “any color will work as long as it’s neutral” approach. “But it’s fun, and it’s Susan’s personality.”
The editing and curating continued, even after the renovation was finished. “Her place has a life of its own,” he notes. “Every time I go over there things are a little different. So I push them back and forth. Maybe I’ll turn something 30 degrees. I think she appreciates it.”
And she does, as long as he doesn’t say to get rid of it.
