Areas served
Interior Design and Renovation in Bratenahl
Bratenahl is four miles long and less than half a mile wide — just over half a square mile of land, wrapped entirely by the City of Cleveland, six miles east of downtown. It exists because in 1902 Liberty E. Holden, Samuel Mather, and Frederick Goff opposed Glenville's annexation into Cleveland and incorporated a village of their own the following year. The name comes from Charles Bratenahl, who held lakefront land there in the mid-nineteenth century. What went up along that shoreline is the reason the village still matters architecturally: Cornings, Hannas, Boltons and Mathers built large houses on the lake, and a country club opened in 1889. Gwinn, at 12407 Lake Shore Boulevard, is a sixteen-room Italian Renaissance villa begun in 1908 for William Mather to designs by Charles Adams Platt, with grounds by Platt and Warren Manning and a semicircular portico facing Lake Erie; it is on the National Register. Abram Garfield built his own Tudor Revival house at 9718 Lake Shore in 1897 and went on to design more of the boulevard, including the Georgian Revival house at 12611 and the stucco Chisholm house at 12717, both from 1910.
Working on the lake
Bratenahl is not a uniform housing stock. Later luxury development replaced some of the original estate houses, so a single stretch of Lake Shore Boulevard can hold a 1910 Georgian Revival, a 1970s lakefront build, and a newer condominium. The design approach has to start with which of those you own.
What they share is the lake, and the lake sets the terms.
Light is the first one. North-facing glazing over open water is bright, cool, and reflective, and it moves. Whites go blue. Warm woods flatten. Selecting finishes for a lake-facing room from samples viewed anywhere else is a mistake we do not make twice — we look at everything in the room, at more than one time of day.
Orientation is the second. On a narrow lot between a boulevard and a bluff, every good room wants the same wall. Kitchens, primary suites and living space compete for the same 30 feet of lake frontage, and resolving that is most of the plan.
The environment is the third. Wind, spray, temperature swing, and humidity off Lake Erie are hard on window assemblies, exterior finishes, and anything on a terrace. Specification here is a durability decision, not only an aesthetic one.
The village has an Architectural Review Board, and exterior work is reviewed through the village Building Department. We have worked with architectural review boards across northeast Ohio, and the habit that matters is the same everywhere: confirm the current requirements with the village at the start of the project rather than assuming they match a neighboring community's.
How we work
We take on a limited number of projects each year.
The first step is a Discovery Call: thirty minutes, by phone, free of charge. If it is a fit, a $5,000 retainer books you into our calendar and is credited against the final invoice. Design fees are scope-based and quoted after the call rather than published in advance.
We are generally booking eight to twelve weeks ahead. Design takes four to six months and construction six to eight, which puts a full lakefront renovation at ten to fourteen months; a new house takes twelve to eighteen.
We will recommend contractors, or work with the one you already trust.
Email, phone, Zoom, and in-person meetings, Monday through Friday, 9am to 7pm. We ask clients not to text.
Our studio is at 5900 Detroit Avenue in Cleveland, and it is where we sit down with clients. Bratenahl is regular working territory; travel is charged as part of the project. The studio is the only office we have.
Scope and investment
We want mixed-scope work: full renovations, multi-room projects, and new construction.
Projects start at a total investment of $100,000. Kitchens begin at $125,000, whole-home renovations at $350,000, and new construction at $1.5M. Every one of those figures is the cost of the project, not the cost of the design — fees are quoted to scope once we understand what the house needs.
We do not take single-room or furniture-only projects, including in lakefront condominiums.
Start the conversation
If you own on the lake and the house is not doing what the view deserves, let us talk about it properly.
HIM&HIS Design · 5900 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44102 · (216) 236-3883
Also close by
Our studio is at 5900 Detroit Avenue in Cleveland, and the practice reaches well past it — Florida, the Great Lakes, the Northeast and the Mountain West. We travel to every project.