A Blank Slate

Interior designer Gail Urso imbues a beachfront cottage near Saugatuck with color, patterns, and year-round cheer

BY MEGAN SWOYER | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF GARLAND

Both pages: You can’t beat the Lake Michigan views, whether from outdoors on the deck or on the porch.

Interior designer Gail Urso never grew tired of her commute to a Douglas cottage that she was designing. “I went there dozens of times,” recalls the Grosse Pointe Park-based professional. “It was pretty remote, but not far from Saugatuck. It was right on Lake Michigan, up on a hill, and just gorgeous.

“The client is wonderful, very open, and told me I had free reign,” says Urso, who runs Urso Designs Inc. “She knew of my work from other projects I’d done for her at The Homestead in Glen Arbor and at her home in Birmingham.”

With four bedrooms and 5.5 baths, the Shingle-style home was once extremely basic, Urso explains, with natural wood and white walls. “I was very excited walking into it. There was no furniture, no art, no color. It was cold.” Urso had a blank slate. She was immediately struck by the water views. “I wanted to focus on the views; they were everything. (With those kind of views), you can’t be overwhelmed by what’s going on in the interiors. But the thing is, the clients were planning to be at the home in various seasons. So, because in

Michigan, it can be gray a lot of the year, I wanted to create warmth and make it interesting without distracting from great summertime views.”

Her keen eye for design is innate, she says. “I had always wanted to be a designer, but I was a teacher first, in St. Clair Shores,” Urso shares. “My parents strongly advised me to be a teacher or a nurse — that’s how it was then.” With a mother who had a “good eye and worked with an interior designer in the home I grew up in,” Urso’s penchant for fabrics and furnishings never was out of the picture.

As for the color selections, Urso has made some intriguing observations over the years as a seasoned designer. “I’ve noticed that people tend to like colors in their home that they look good in,” she notes. “So when I’m working with clients, I can almost tell from looking at them what colors they may be comfortable with.”

The overall goal was to ensure that the look wouldn’t feel outdated over time. And with the classic appointments, like beadboard, it likely won’t, she says.

Urso sensed that one key to creating more warmth in the cottage was to paint all the “blond wood” white. “We refinished the floors in a driftwood color,” she says. She also used a lot of blue, to reflect the outdoors.

One of the designer’s favorite spaces is the primary bedroom, which features luxurious fabrics from China Seas. Punches of tomato red brighten the space. In the kitchen, more color pops with a green island. “In addition to bringing the blue in from outdoors, we used a lot of green in the home, which also reflects the outdoors.”

Urso admits she likes to be a little brave with colors. “Chocolate brown is a wonderful backdrop for blues and greens. And art stands out so well when you have a brown background, or even eggplant or a dark green.”

For the children’s room, she found a fabulous fabric featuring a colorful bird motif for the window treatments and storage bench cushions. A rich cobalt blue paint was used on the bed frames and benches. And that aforementioned chocolate brown (a “yummy color,” Urso says) coats the wall behind the beds.

“That space has lots of color and is very uplift- ing,” the designer says. In a guest room, jaunty chocolate-brown-and-white stripes bedeck captivating window treatments, while splashes of brighter blue come into play with an easy-chair throw and accent pillow fabrics. Urso says she prefers to procure her furnishings and accessories from the Michigan Design Center in Troy. “That doesn’t always work out, but when I can, that’s where I go.”

The living room is awash in deep blues, and showcases gorgeous blue and green pottery. “The client is always picking up art objects. She loves art and spends part of her summer in Maine.”

Although the project was a little more than 200 miles from Urso’s studio, the entire process was en- joyable and “a labor of love,” she shares. She used some of her contractors from metro Detroit, including her painter, wallpaper installer, carpet installer, and window treatment and bedding fabricator.

Urso had all the furniture shipped to a warehouse in nearby Holland. “They delivered all the furniture to Douglas and were the best,” she says. Many of the contractors enjoyed the area as much as Urso. “Our painter, who did the whole house, arrived with his crew and spent a month there just painting. He and his team ‘camped’ at the home.”

“We wanted to create a well-designed home that was comfortable, livable, attractive, and functional,” Urso says. “There were animals and grandchil- dren to consider, sand and wet bathing suits, and crisp fall days and cold winter nights to plan for.”

There’s no doubt that the home has become a special gathering place for the family.

“As a designer, it was the project of a lifetime,” Urso says. “That’s because of the creativity I was allowed, the team I worked with, and the wonderful satisfaction of knowing that my clients are happy.”