The Custom Cage Door at The Brexley

When it comes to design, one spark of inspiration can set you off in a completely new direction. Just ask Cindy Steinman, owner of The Brexley in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“I had already had a design drawn up for what was to become The Brexley,” she explains, “then I saw this amazing door on the internet. That changed everything.”

This pivotal door is featured at Guilherme Torres’ live work space in São Paulo, Brazil. It made such an impression on Cindy that it forced her to totally rethink the entirety of her plans. “I had to scrap the design and start over to build a home with this door as the main attraction.”

Finding the inspiration is one thing, but executing that vision is a whole other. “The house was done and I couldn’t find anyone to build this cage door!” Cindy says. “So I was left with a face without a nose basically. Everything was based off of this wooden cage entry.”

Cindy had been working with the local concrete architect Cody Carpenter to build other parts of the property. As the owner and operator of Architectural Concrete Interiors, he is a skilled craftsman and completely understood the importance of Cindy’s vision for the front door.

He offered a solution: “How about you let me make it out of steel pipes, it will better this way anyway being in Arizona?”

Cindy didn’t bat an eyelash. “I right away said yes, go for it,” she says. “I had total confidence in him.”

Cody reimagined the original wooden door, conceptualizing a series of 7,500 steel pipes of various sizes welded against one another. “He knew what my original idea was with the wooden cage with square holes,” says Cindy, “and he took it in a very creative steel pipe direction. That was his idea.”

The finished product is a stellar specimen of design that surpassed Cindy Steinman’s wildest expectations.

“It has now become renowned in Phoenix and Scottsdale,” she says proudly, and The Brexley itself is expected to get trademarked because of it. The home as a whole is a uniquely chic destination for style conscious travelers, but the cage door is what truly sets it apart.

To stay at The Brexley, click here.