Architectural And Interior Designer Finds An Ideal Location In Newtown

By Kaaren Valenta

Contractors’ trucks line the street in front of the brown ranch-style house just off Castle Hill Road. Inside the gutted interior of what once was an in-law apartment, a carpenter frames new rooms.

Built in 1969, the main house and accessory apartment are evolving into the home and office of Charles Burke, an architectural and interior designer whose award-winning projects have been featured in such publications as Architectural Digest, House & Garden, Designer’s West, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and Playboy. His work has been selected for the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum’s Library of Design and is included in Sensuous Spaces, a book by Sivon Reznikoff, published by the museum.

After spending more than four decades in Los Angeles and New York City working for an international clientele that has included such celebrities as Mrs Henry Mancini, Lily Tomlin, and Richard Simmons, Mr Burke has moved his base of operations from a condo on the Upper East Side to Newtown. 

Located midway between lower Fairfield County and Litchfield, within easy driving distance of New York City and Boston, Newtown looked like an ideal location, according to Vincent Capuano, Charles Burke’s business partner.

“We’ve been coming to Connecticut for many years,” Mr Capuano explained. “Newtown is so charming, yet there is a lot of building going on here. We were excited to see that there are so many showrooms in this area. There’s a large influx of people coming into the area with great products and offering terrific services.”

About two years ago they saw a house on Head O’ Meadow Road that had just come on the market.

“The house was so dark and dreary but my eyes could see that it had great bones,” Mr Burke said. “Everything fell into place so perfectly that I felt there just had to be a reason for it.”

When it is finished, one side of the house will include an office, reception room, conference room, and kitchen, with two bedrooms and two baths for occasional overnight guests. The completely redesigned accessory apartment features new windows with a view that overlooks a pond and wooded backyard on the property. The entire house will be fully automated, using wireless technology for audio, video, lighting, a security system, and other electronics.

Beginning his career as a furniture designer in southern California, Mr Burke has owned interior design and lighting showrooms in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. In a series of career events that he calls serendipitous, he gradually moved into designing entire homes and offices for clients.

Charles Burke’s design services include the design and construction of new homes and turnkey interior home renovations. These services include custom furnishings, color selection, fabric and finishes, wall and floor coverings, window treatments, art selection, interior and exterior lighting, and budget management. He will also do much smaller projects, however.

“We do tabletop design  — china, crystal, silver, and linen selection — floral selection and placement, art and sculpture selection and placement, space planning, and real estate settings for open houses,” Mr Capuano said. “We have sources that will send us, on approval, art and sculpture for the clients to see in their own home before making a decision.”

Mr Capuano, who recently joined the company to help Mr Burke implement the expansion of the business into Fairfield County, has a financial background, most recently as senior vice president for a global management company headquartered in New York City, and prior to that in consumer baking operations for Citibank. Originally from a small town in upstate New York, he moved to New York City nearly 30 years ago to attend New York University.

Charles Burke’s biography in Who’s Who in Interior Design includes his award-winning daisy-shaped furnishings popular in the 1970s when the “flower power” revolution was at its peak. He pioneered the use of elegant, low-voltage interior lighting; and was a set and lighting consultant on such films as Logan’s Run and Sleeper, and for road shows for Donna Summers and Elton John.

“I did some of the first modern lightening shows in the [Beverly Hills] area,” he said. “Lighting is the third dimension of design. Then one day I started doing entire projects for clients.”

A California home that he designed for an international industrialist led to a series of homes for European clients in California and to commercial projects that eventually brought him to New York City nearly 20 years ago.

An allied member of the American Society of Interior Designers, he creates “a totally responsive environment that answers every mood, feeling, and physical need of the client,” according to Sivon Reznikoff in Sensuous Spaces. 

“Luxury is such a personal thing,” Mr Burke said. “Design starts with listening to the client.”

Reflecting on his career, Charles Burke, 65, said “One project just blossomed into the next. Doors opened and a kid from Los Angeles wound up in places he could only dream about.”

The company is building a website at www.charlesburkedesign.com. For more information call 270-8513 or email info@charlesburkedesign.com.