Sarah Sherman Samuel Took a “Castle Gone Wrong” and Spun It Into a Palace for Her Family

When designer Sarah Sherman Samuel and her husband, Rupert, first saw a listing for a Mediterranean-inspired brick house in their hometown of East Grand Rapids, Michigan, they could tell it would be a huge undertaking: “It was a total dungeon inside,” she says. “Like a castle gone wrong.”

Not that they’re afraid of a project. Together, as SSS Builds, she and Rupert had already restored a nearby 1920s Tudor, which they recently sold, and Sherman Samuel is the designer behind Mandy Moore’s midcentury escape, polo player Nacho Figueras’s chic Florida pad, and countless other stylish jobs. But this 5,000-square-foot home wouldn’t be a fast flip—it would be a labor of love that would involve a ton of restoration and renovation.

Rupert Samuel and Sarah Sherman Samuel in their East Grand Rapids home.

Given the work required, the home sat on the market for a whole year, then eventually went down hundreds of thousands dollars in price. “We were like, how do we not get this?” she says. “Yes, it would be an insane amount of work and require a huge steel beam and all the things. But if you did that, this house would be incredible.”

Calling their new purchase the “Italian on the Boulevard,” the couple got to work, keeping what they could—the fireplace, flooring, and yellow-tiled bathroom—and making big changes where they needed to. They opened up the kitchen, which involved adding a 25-foot structural beam, pouring a new concrete footing, and adding foundational pillars in the basement.

The plan was to spruce it up and sell it—after all, their family already lived in a woodsy area about 15 minutes away and didn’t need a new home. But in a classic “cobbler has no shoes” situation, that house, a sleek postmodern, was never quite finished in the way she would treat a home she was designing for someone else.

Next to the kitchen, Sherman Samuel turned a wet bar into a breakfast nook for morning tea. The marble bistro table is an upcoming SSS Atelier design, and the striped upholstery is from Perennials. The sconce is Human Home, and the art is by Victor Pasmore.

The family room, attached to the kitchen, is where you’ll find the family most days. Sherman Samuel designed the sofa and its fabric. The chair is a vintage Heinz Julen Pirmin, and the coffee table is vintage too.

Months into the renovation, they decided they’d move the family into the five-bedroom, six-bathroom space, and, for the first time, live like Sarah Sherman Samuel’s clientele. “I’ve never lived in a house as if I’ve done it for a client, like where the light switches are nice and every single thing is done and decorated.”