A Hollywood Premiere

Jen Renzi -- Interior Design, 1/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

FOR ITS NEW regional sales office and showroom in Hollywood, Florida, the Westye Group Southeast—a distributor of Sub-Zero, Wolf, and other high-end appliance lines—requested a design that would highlight the company's breadth of product. But the real challenge, explains Wendy Mendes, vice president and leader of the corporate interiors practice for RTKL's Miami office, was "catering to the tastes of south Florida, which is very diverse and cosmopolitan." Collaborating with Jim Donlin of the Westye Group, RTKL cooked up a classy, cohesive look tailored to both a consumer and trade clientele but ultimately "driven by the design community," says Mendes. "It's very contemporary and a little adventurous." The 7,200-square-foot, $1.5 million facility houses sales offices, a training room with adjacent demonstration kitchen, a refrigerator-display area, and an octagonal showroom with a dramatic crisscrossed ceiling and dark wood floors. Along the perimeter of this space are eight vignettes, "each with an entirely different personality, running the gamut in terms of color selection and stylistic vocabulary"—from a contemporary European kitchen to a cozy, wood-paneled room showcasing wine storage and refrigeration units.