Skip and Michelle Liepke loved the look of their authentic 1915 Prairie Style house in Minneapolis when they bought it in 1991. "I like the fact that it's truly American and very Midwestern," says Skip. What they didn't love, however, was their authentic Prairie Style kitchen furnished with harvest-gold appliances.

"A kitchen in 1915 was designed just for servants," says Skip. "It was very small and utilitarian, and no one ever ate in there. But now, when people come over for parties, they stand in the kitchen. Our kitchen would be jammed with 30 people, and nobody could move."

After putting up with the undersized and underequipped kitchen for several years, the couple called on architect Joe Metzler to design a modern kitchen that fit in with the style of the house. According to Skip, that meant "a warm color scheme, some art glass, a lot of woodwork, and a lot of rectilinear design." The fit had to be seamless. Both had seen older homes with remodeled kitchens that were beautiful but done in a modern design that was unsympathetic to the style of the houses.

To accommodate their lifestyle, and especially their casual, kitchen-centered entertaining, Skip and Michelle decided they wanted to add an informal dining area off the kitchen, where guests could gather while their hosts cooked. While they were at it, they asked Metzler to add a direct passage from the kitchen to a nearby sunroom, which was accessible only by traipsing all the way through the house. Metzler's design solution not only did all of this, it also tied into the formerly freestanding garage behind the house, making it possible to go from the garage directly into the house. And he did it in a high Prairie-inspired style that actually is more detailed than the rest of the house.

Being an artist, Skip participated closely in the design process, including mixing the leathery-red color for the concrete floor. He says he chose concrete over wood or tile for the color control, the texture, and the fact that he could run the floor out to his patio, where it would hold up to the cold Minneapolis winters. "I like concrete's low maintenance; it's like having a driveway in the kitchen." He also painted and glazed the walls in the kitchen and dining area. Over a buff latex base coat, he applied orange-salmon and greenish-yellow glazes thinned with linseed oil. When mixing glazes, Skip suggests using complementary colors that play off each other. The blend makes a richer, deeper finish, he says.

In addition, Skip designed all of the stained glass transoms and worked with Metzler to design the light fixtures. And he treated the new brass switchplates, doorknobs, and drawer pulls with a special patina to keep them from standing out too much against the soft tones of the slate countertops, hammered-copper sinks, tinted concrete floor, and mahogany wood cabinets.

Choosing appliances that are state-of-the-art but that wouldn't look out of place in a Prairie Style kitchen took a lot of research. "One thing that is problematic in our kitchen is that if you put something in that doesn't fit, it stands right out," says Skip. "Because of the architecture, there's a certain rhythm going on, and if you put in a harsh color or something that doesn't work, it really jumps out. So the range, refrigerator, and other big elements had to fit in." The Liepkes felt that stainless steel wasn't compatible with the tone of the kitchen, so they chose plum-brown appliances where available and custom panels to cover what they couldn't get in their color choice.

To keep the new, 40-foot-long kitchen/casual dining space from being cavernous, Metzler used decorative ceiling molding to visually mark off spaces over specific areas of the room. The architect got additional decorative mileage from the molding by running it down the wall to frame a row of transom windows. "It's something you would find in a high-style Prairie house," Metzler notes. He also used cabinets and changes in levels to distinguish areas within the large space, much as would have been done 80-plus years ago in living rooms.

"It's not the kind of kitchen you would have found in a house like this, but it reflects how kitchens-rather than living rooms—have become the focal point of the house," explains Metzler. "Usually, when people entertain, it revolves around food they're still cooking when people arrive. This design reflects the fact that guests hang out in the kitchen, and it also reflects the way families live. It's a really pleasant place to be for all the activities that happen around a meal."

Text: Eliot Nusbaum

Architects: Joe Metzler and Steve Buetow

Regional Editor: Lisa Cicotte