The multipurpose kitchen of the Harold Florsheims in Highland Park, Illinois | designer Bertrand Goldberg

12/05/2025 08:25:00 PM

A kitchen is as good as its plan, whether the space you have to work with is large or small. But when your space is large, careful planning is particularly important because it can spare you unnecessary legwork. If you have a large old-fashioned kitchen, space can sometimes be too much of a good thing; thoughtful remodeling is often the key to efficiency. The kitchen of the Harold Florsheims in Highland Park, Illinois, is an outstanding case in point. Its precise plan turns what was an outmoded kitchen and butler's pantry into three smooth-working parts. No walls were altered; all changes were brought about with new lighting and equipment, carefully chosen and organized. The strategic placement of cooking appliances, storage and clean-up facilities divides the kitchen into: a central work unit where one person can easily turn out a meal without having to take more than a step or two; a center for preparing and storing food; and a party preparation center. These divisions are perfectly geared to the entertaining pattern of the Florsheims—they like to give informal parties where they concoct and serve the food themselves, and large parties where caterers are called in. The kitchen was designed by Bertrand Goldberg.

CENTRAL WORK UNIT

The central work unit is really a kitchen within a kitchen. It houses all the equipment needed to prepare a meal and is arranged in a U-shape so that Mrs. Florsheim can cook an entire meal alone without having to walk a mile back and forth. Often pressed into service for the informal suppers the Florsheims make themselves is the built-in charcoal grill—one of three cooking methods in this central work unit. The other cooking facilities are built-in surface burners—both gas and electric—and ovens, both electric and electronic. In addition, the central work unit boasts a refrigerator, a mixing center, and a stainless steel sink with a special tap which delivers boiling water for tea or coffee. In back of the gas burners specially designed steel cabinets for dry food storage are built into the wall with teak wall cabinets above them for additional cooking utensil storage.

PARTY CENTER

The main purpose of the party preparation center is to keep the many non-cooking activities that go on in a kitchen out of the cooking area. Drink mixing, flower arranging and table setting preliminaries can be dispatched with ease in the party center, which is built into what was formerly the butler's pantry. One wall is a solid bank of teak cabinets for silver, china and crystal. The other wall consists of the bar equipment as well as a food warmer (compartments to keep some foods warm and moist, some warm and crisp) and dishwasher needed for meal service and clean-up. This means that drink mixing or table setting can proceed without recourse to the kitchen proper. If hot hors d'oeuvre are served with cocktails, they can be made well in advance and put in the warmer, so that the slightest disturbance to the cook is side-stepped.

FOOD PREPARATION CENTER

The center for preparing and storing food is near the delivery entrance where groceries are received. Every appliance is placed with admirable logic to save time and motion. Fresh fruits and vegetables can be scrubbed at the sink, chopped on the built-in cutting board if ready for use, or dispatched to storage bins and refrigerators. Paper towels for drying vegetables, foil to wrap them in are in a wall receptacle handy to the sink. Canned goods go into the storage cabinets, to be opened when needed with the built-in electric can opener next to the towel-foil holder. Foods can be temperature-controlled in two freezers, two refrigerators. Food taken out of freezers or refrigerators for a meal is put on the nearby peninsula of the central work unit. When several people are working in the kitchen the food preparation and storage center is more than a convenience—it's a real necessity.