The pretty, brick, Japanese-accent front of this house gives little hint of the dramatic scene that blooms when you open the door.

It is midcentury modern, mixed with antique Asian, plus the panache of carved cherry trim, doors and bronze hardware from Anna Dodge’s Rose Terrace mansion.

The rear of the house is perched in treetops and walled with glass. The lot is a wooded hill with a quick drop down to Island Lake. Out front is Kirkway Drive, the posh little wooded street that winds behind Bloomfield Townships’s giant Kirk in the Hills Church.

The personal vision that formed this spectacle is so specific the next owner may want to remodel. But right now it’s an exhilarating pod of Asian design, original art, Mother Nature and  modernism.

That goes right to the vintage appliances in the midcentury bar — a stainless steel Osterizer to mix cocktails and a stainless steel Dishmaster with its little hose and brush to wash glasses.

This house was the 1970s and '80s project of a late businessman who collected art, loved nature and traveled to Asia, Edward Frank Mayne Jr. “When we were growing up,” his daughter Michelle Mayne  said, “the house was always in a state of construction.”  She has since done more upgrading.

In the 1970s, Edward Mayne bought the small, pretty ranch on a deep wooded lot, then expanded it with space and splash.

He added a 31-foot, glass-walled greatroom to the lower level — all polished drama today. A large, six-side ceiling cutout pours light into its center. A sinuous staircase weaves up through it.

Three steps up, a marble fireplace and a long, lighted sculpture wall  make up the lower gallery. And as mentioned above, carved cherry trim around the fireplace and gallery came from Anna Dodge’s Rose Terrace. Michelle Mayne remembers going through Rose Terrace with her father as a child and buying these pieces before the mansion was razed.   

The greatroom’s striking wood floor is among contemporary upgrades by Michelle Mayne. Here and in other rooms she replaced carpet with natural hickory. Leaving hickory unstained like this makes striking patterns of very light tones mixed with dark.

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The owners’ suite is a celebration of zen — a large room kept nearly bare, with glass walls on three sides and a white oak floor. The bed is centered on a low wood platform with a large ceiling cutout above. This cutout has two Asian-style wood grids that can be closed or slid apart. When they’re open, you see through curving flange-shape sculptures on the roof and up to the sky.

Quiet wood walls and floors continue into the “non-bathroom” bathroom, separate rooms made of wood, not shiny tile. Two sinks are the only facilities that show. 

A third segment holds a sunken stone hot tub that looks like that 1950s staple lava rock.  Here again, Michelle Mayne replaced the floor, this time with unusual “end-cut” wood squares. The suite's fourth room is a huge walk-in closet.

The roofs of Edward Mayne’s large additions are all pierced with artistic skylights. A utility chimney is enclosed Japanese style. In good weather, Mayne kept many pots of flowers growing on the flat roofs, his daughter said. He walked up there and called it his Japanese garden, “a place of solace and peace.”

Enlarging his house by building down the hill created a two-level floor plan. The lower level has the dramatic greatroom, and the zen owners’ suite.

The entry level, the original house, has the kitchen and dining room, three bedrooms and two baths and the original living room. Edward Mayne replaced its back wall and half its ceiling with greenhouse-style glass.

At the water’s edge, this house has a boat dock, currently put away for the winter, and it has canoe storage.

Island Lake is a 111-acre lake with a no-wake rule. It allows only electric motors or hand-powered craft like kayaks, canoes.      

“We used to have a neighbor who went out every morning sculling,” Michelle Mayne said.

Key features:  Highly dramatic midcentury Asian house has living on two levels, at the side of a wooded hill on Island Lake shore. Secluded setting, glass walls toward lake. Unusual components include doors, carved paneling and bronze hardware from Anna Dodge’s Rose Terrace.

Contact: Brandon Curry, Signature Sotheby’s International, 313-303-7263.