"Women called and said I want Oprah's closet. For more than a year, they called asking for it," said Pam Hillebrand, who with her husband, Gary, owns the Closet Factory in Baltimore.
Jodi Lare wanted her closet to be fun and functional. She installed leopard-print carpeting underfoot, feminine capiz shell chandeliers overhead and delicate ecru drapery panels on huge windows. It's where she plops down on a settee in between part-time work at her family's pharmacy and running after her two small children.
It is, she said, a personalized and stress-busting blend of utilitarian space and sanctuary, from telescoping valet rods for preparing the next morning's clothing to the mini-fridge that holds beers and midnight-feeding baby bottles.
"I love the way it looks, but it's really functional," Lare said, noting that it helps her to start her day organized. "You just don't have that sense of calm when things are in disarray. It definitely does make life easier - you know where everything is, you see something, you can grab it."
It also can be peaceful: "Sometimes I just kind of chill out, shut the doors and relax up there."
And it's fun with friends: "You buy something, you bring it home, you try it on with different things. Does it look flattering with this jacket? Does it match this? And your girlfriends there can say, uh, you might not want to keep it."
And, with mirrors, a television and DVD player, it's a space to entertain a baby while dressing: "I can play SpongeBob at any time."
Patrick Sutton of Patrick Sutton Associates, an architecture and design firm in Baltimore, which counts Lare's among its walk-in decors, says couple dynamics typically have men butting out of the intricacies of a woman's dressing room.
"This is where she goes to transform herself into the princess she wants to be," Sutton said.
Cabinetmaker Gary Harvey, president of Henry Harvey & Sons Inc. in Baltimore, designed and built the closet last year based on Lare's requirements when her home was being expanded by Design Alternatives Inc. of Hunt Valley.
Lare has a three-mirror cove with separate recessed lighting. In front of two stationary stacks of shoe cubbies and boot stalls is a third stack, a slider with 27 shoe cubbies "so you can make use of the space," Harvey said.
