Judy Rose

Special to the Detroit Free Press

Longtime residents of Lake Shore Drive may know this home by its nickname, the Darth Vader House. Fans of the TV show Detroit 187 saw it as the fictional home of a rich Grosse Pointe family whose little girl was kidnapped.

This sprawling house beside Lake St. Clair has been making a splash since 1978, when a tool and die owner built it of steel.

Even more so since 2000, when its current owner gutted the house, tore out walls and remodeled lavishly with so much inlaid marble it takes extra pillars in the lower level to support the weight.

About 1,200 people paid to see it during one Grosse Pointe house tour. It has been on a kitchen tour and hosted political fundraisers and huge Christmas parties. "I've had 500 people in this house," the owner said.

They got an eyeful. Even the lower level is remarkable -- a large disco with a long, curved bar, padded booths, a mirrored ball, colored lights and a dance floor. It came with the house, said owner Michele Malik.

What do you do with a disco?" she asked. "You keep it. People love a disco."

On the main floor the tone is all opulence. She changed the main entrance from the de rigueur showy double door to a full wall made from five panels of leaded glass. It opens to the foyer, where a large medallion design is laid into the marble floor.

Overhead, one plane of the cathedral ceiling is a triangle of glass set in steel, a super-skylight. There are four of these, original to the house.

From there, marble floors run through room after room, all with inlaid designs. At the kitchen this changes to cherry wood in two-foot squares, set into marble frames.

This 26-foot-long kitchen is a hospitality marvel with deep-carved oak-and-cherry cabinets, another glass ceiling, granite, decorative corbels.

The huge center island has two different sides.One side is for everyday cooking, Malik said, with a six-burner Viking stove, a grill and a double oven. Two pull-out refrigerator doors here make it handy to grab cold drinks for kids.

The other side has the special equipment -- a high-power wok burner, a deep fryer, a steamer plud two convection ovens by Gaggenau.

There's an elaborate Venetian glass chandelier over the kitchen's eating area, and she had stained glass windows made in the same colors.

Malik took down walls so every room has a view of the lake. That's when sheran into the steel structure. And instead of 2-by-4s, the wood supporots are 3-by-6. This house could probably handle an earthquake if Grosse Pointe Shores had them.

She combined several rooms on the main floor to make an owner's suite with a striking walk-in closet. The compartments built for different parts of a wardrobe are glass, so the clothes don't get dusty and they're easy to see.

There's a laundry room and a huge owner's bath -- marble, naturally.

Next to the jetted tub, she built a sliding window of obscured glass. You can close it for privacy or open it and see the TV, the fireplace and the lake. An office is also built into this suite on a raised platform.

The second floor has four more bedrooms and two more baths.

One last question: Why is this the Darth Vader House?

Some of the distinctive houses on the Pointes' Lake Shore Drive picked up nicknames, Malik said -- the Taco Bell House, the I Love You House. This house was built the year after the first "Star Wars," and its cedar-shingled roof suggests Darth Vader's helmet.

Grosse Pointe mansion

Where: 591 Lake Shore Road, Grosse Pointe Shores cq

How much: $2.3 million

Bedrooms: 5

Baths: 5 full, 1 half

Square feet: About 8,500 above grade, 5,100 finished in the lower level.

Key features: Very large house on Lake Shore Road has a lake view from every room, a huge, heavily equipped kitchen, wide open spaces, opulent finishes, marble floors. Lower level has a disco, 1,200-bottle wine tasting room, a large theater, cedar sauna.

Contact: Alex Lucido and Maudi Moody, Lucido and Associates, 313-268-2000, or Kay Agney, Higbie Maxon Agney Realtors, 313-885-3400.