Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 29

DETROIT FREE PRESS Thursday, August 26, '71 1-C Bunkie Makes His 'Bebuf in Cleveland WWWWlMIBIPWIIBII MltlMMIII III Mil IllliJJL If I 0 14 1" 1,1 rt I'M A 1 1 in i i in i ir in i ii i ii I i Semon E. Knudsen with Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Firestone. Firestone is on board of Florence Knudsen in penthouse which will one day be all black, while, marble and mirror, on Cleveland's east side.

Free Press Photos by JOE LIPPINCOTT Scene of the White Motor Corporation party in honor of the Knudsens were orange and white striped tents at Cleveland's Blossom Festival Center. Cleveland's Blossom Festival Center. BY JEANNE WHITTAKER Frci Press Staff Writer Look out Big Three, America's second automotive city has issued a challenge! That's just one of the things I learned while spending Tuesday in Cleveland with Semon E. "Bunkie" Knudsen and his wife, Florence. The occasion was the official coming out party that the board of directors of White Motor Corporation gave far Knudsen, their chairman and chief operating officer.

A little challenge never hurt anyone, but While Is using graduates of Detroit's Big Three to do the challenging. With Bunkie in his office on the 31st floor of the Erieview Building, in downtown Cleveland, were James G. Musser formerly assistant chief designer with Chevrolet's Vega project and Bunkie's partner in his Rectrans Corporation, along with Sam Petok, for 18 years public relations manager for Chrysler's automotive sales division. There was a magnificent vista from Bunkie's office, the Cleveland stadium to the left, an ocean-going freighter at anchor in the lake, center, and to the right the White Sabre-liner jet standing on the apron of Bourke Municipal Airport. BUNKIE AND FLORENCE have been in Cleveland since May 1.

"We were looking for someone with stature in the automotive world," said George S. Dively, chairman of the board of Harris-Intertype Corporation, who had served as interim chairman of White. "We had problems and needed the best. He (Knudsen) has awesome motivation and we needed him," Dively went on. "We made the decision based on somebody of that calibre who was willing to accept a wholesale, thorough, com- There will be a den for Bunkie and a smallish bedroom to serve guests.

Florence and Bunkie will have a huge master bedroom with more sheets of glass and space enough for all nine grandchildren to curl up in sleeping bags should they arrive at once. Florence's dressing room and bath will be faced in mirror and marble. And rows of closets are being built to hold every-occasion-of-the-day outfits. Perhaps the most unusual feature so far in the apartment are the circular skylights that workmen are cutting in the ceiling of each room. They are plexiglass covered and dur-ing the noon sunlight great beams of sunshine highlighted piles of lumber and workmen's tools.

Later it will bounce off black floors. Florence will take no furniture from their Bloomfield Hills home. "Just some favorite china, silver and the sort of things everyone needs to live and entertain with," she said. "Perhaps the painting Kelly DeLorean did of the children that is now hanging over my bed in Bloomfield." Between conferences with the builders, Florence has been discovering the countryside on Cleveland's east side, Gates Mills and Shaker Heights, elegant suburbs. It is also the area known as the Western Reserve, once part of Connecticut.

Today the rolling countryside is close to being a replica of the Eastern states. "ISN'T IT MAGNIFICENT?" she said as she steered her silver gray, and black El Dorado down brick paved roads past winding streams and around bends and through stop signs in her enthusiasm. "Now I've done it," she said. "Are you scared? I get lost Turn to Page 4C, Col. 1 plete deal.

No commuting, living right here in Cleveland, full time office hours, a total package. And we got the best there is. But, he isn't cheap. "He wouldn't come unless he brought Rectrans along too. (Rectrans was Knudsen's mobile home business founded after Bunkie was fired by Henry Ford II.) We decided it was a needed addition to our truck, construction and farm equipment lines, and we wound up buying the outfit." Just one more question before I departed to meet Flor-ence "What kind of car are you driving these days, Mr.

Knudsen?" A wide grin spread over his face as he asked, "Which one in what city?" With homes in Bloomfield Hills and Palm Beach besides Cleveland, the Knudsens have a veritable fleet, a Maverick, Chevrolet, Lincoln Continental, Cadillac El Dorado and perhaps soon a Volkswagen since Bunkie has discovered that the tiny import can slip past the electric beam in the Erieview's parking lot. FLORENCE WAS AT THE DOOR of the Acacia-on-the-Green Apartments in suburban Lyndhurst. The building is so new it is only partially inhabited and while the Knudsens' home is being finished it looks much like a disaster area. Florence and Bloomfield Hills decorator Bea Solomon are planning a penthouse home that will have vistas looking over the treetops to the rolling hills that are the beginning of the Appalachians. Guests will find the Interior entirely In stark whites, black, mirror and marble.

Facing the entry a glass walled garden is taking shape. Completely surrounded by other rooms, the garden is open to the sky. To the right an octagonal kitchen will be open to view. The living room will contain custom-made furniture, sparse but perfect, to give, full attention to the sheets of glass that give unobstructed view. Mr.

and Mrs. James G. Musser Jr. of Bloomfield Hills will move to Cleveland. TO yp'l 1 1 'j THE LONG, SHORT AND IN-BETWEEN OF THE SKIRT FOR FALL Button-fronts are falling In place for fall In all orls of great new ways.

And we've put together a great new collection and teamed them to some great new tops. There's short button-fronts, long button-fronts and In-between button-fronts; and they're all here In all kinds of great new shades, styles, fabrics and sizes. And they're all teamed to soma really great turtle-nepks, shirts and pullovers. Get yourself together at HHS. OPEN FRIDAY SATURDAY TO 9 P.M.

EXCEPTIONS: WOODWARD (NR. STATE) OPEN FRI. SAT. TO JACKSON OPEN THURS. SAT.

TO BIRMINGHAM OPEN SAT. TO 5:30.