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JANUARY | PAGE 17 | 2015 W hen Armond and Cindy Schwartz built their modern glass and Pennsylvania blue stone house in University Park, it was the odd man out, the lone wolf among a pack of red-brick Colonial- style abodes. The Schwartzes' children — Armond III, Robyn and Andrew — were in grade school. "The house was different from every other house on the block," says Cindy, who remembers when the architects, Allen Buie Partnership, had to petition the town of University Park for permission to build a circular driveway with the revolutionary idea of squared-off corners. City code at the time permitted only rounded corners, and the traditional driveway would not have fit with the house's clean lines, she says. That small battle was won, but there were others to fight, including public opinion, delivered in the form of a pint-sized emissary. "A third- grader who lived down the street came over to play," says Cindy, "and he told us, 'You should have never built this house.' He was reflecting what his parents said, of course." Cindy — who has a degree from SMU in museum education and studio art — used the child's unvarnished comment as a chance to teach a lesson. "I told him about the Impressionists, and how they were doing something very different from everybody else, and that was good." She suggested he go play in the house with Armond III and reflect on what she'd said. "Later, he told me he really liked the house. His parents' house was traditional with oriental carpets and hardwood floors, and they had to be careful. But they could ride their bikes in our house, and it wouldn't hurt the floors. They could Rollerblade in and out and not worry about it. Or have mud on their shoes. We have a steel staircase — the kids would go down the steps in inner tubes." Thus, the Schwartzes' modern residence became a gathering spot for boisterous neighborhood children. As their kids got older, it became a mecca for Robyn and her Hockaday friends, who often rushed home on their 45-minute lunch breaks to eat sandwiches and soak up the artistic ambience, surrounded by works on paper by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Brice Marden, Sol LeWitt and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as photography by Thomas Struth. Cindy, now a private art consultant who's on the advisory board of the Meadows School of the Arts, began collecting contemporary art when Marcel Duchamp Award-winner Cyprien Gaillard's steel sculpture holds court in the living room. The FedEx box and glass vitrine is a work by L.A. photographer and sculptor Walead Beshty. Saporiti Italia coffee table. Mies van der Rohe Barcelona stools and MR armchairs. Knoll Pfister sofa. In the living room, a massive work by Sol LeWitt. Mies van der Rohe Barcelona stools. Flowers Grange Hall. The kitchen, designed by German kitchen maker Allmilmo, displays Shio Kusaka ceramics and Peter Shire mugs, sold at daughter Robyn Siegel's restaurant Green House Market.