La Dolce Vita

It's the question on the minds of all Americans: How much would I pay for nice kitchen cabinets?
Veteran bath and kitchen designer Marie Schwartz of Studio One Design Associates has always represented plenty of kitchen cabinet lines to satisfy the most demanding and well-heeled of her clientele. With top names like Rich Maid, Canada's Fabricant, Habersham, or Italy's Piu (it doesn't sound good in English, but means "more" in Italian), she and her partner, Rebeka Gurfinchel, offered their clients custom solid wood kitchen cabinets for anywhere from $25,000 to $150,000.
So leave some money for the new toaster, right?
No. There's a new standard now. The cabinets are from an Italian firm called Francesco Molon—the typical price, nearly $400,000. And Design One already has its first order, deposit in hand.
The difference? They're hand-made by craftspeople in a village north of Venice, using rare Italian walnut and burl, and ash from one particular forest in Provence. Then they're hand-waxed.
"I've never seen anything like it," says Schwartz. "The doors are like touching silk or a fine antique with that soft patina. And the cabinetry is on curved legs like French armoires. It is unreal."
Her first order is from a local businessman whose kitchen redo will probably come in at about $500,000—including $20,000 for a chandelier, $50,000 on appliances, and a custom breakfast table from California that's 11 feet long. The cabinets are costing a china-smashing $400,000.
"They're very unassuming people," says Schwartz of her client and his wife. "They just like fine things, like art and antiques."
Her 50-percent deposit in hand, the drawings have been sent to Italy, and she's working with the craftspeople to get it right.
But if Piu sounds like a bad smell, couldn't the language barrier mess up the job? No problem for Schwartz, who was born in Italy and speaks fluent Italian. "I've been talking with them about the design and just to be sure, I'm flying there in May to inspect it before it ships."
With that kind of money at stake, who cares about airfare?