The Willow Glen resident, owner and principal designer of Bethe Cohen Design Associates, beams as she accepts accolades from visitors praising the work Cohen and her five associates did on the house.

"The six of us just had a wonderful time, pushing each other to get fabulous end results," she says. "We had fun, and it shows."

The 4,350-square-foot house with its five bedrooms and four baths is the completion of a vision Cohen conceived only eight months ago, when she learned her firm had been chosen to do the interior designs in one of the two Sunset Idea Houses now sitting side by side. The Sunset editorial staff did the design work on the second home.

"We only had an eight-month turnaround, and typically it takes us eight months just to do a kitchen," she says, crediting team members Vivian Ushana, Ziggy Trenkler, Stefanie Okon, Skye Olson and Amy Treleaven. "We worked backwards and forwards."

While each of the women had certain areas and responsibilities, Cohen stresses it was a team effort, with each design point discussed by the group. The objective was to bring the project to its highest possible aesthetic level.

Cohen's inspiration for the Idea House is based on the Arts and Crafts movement and the work of the major designers of that period, particularly Greene and Greene and Frank Lloyd Wright.

"We wanted to take the patterns from the Arts and Crafts movement and bring them into the year 2010," she says with a smile. "I think we were successful in doing so."

Because the house was being built, rather than remodeled, Cohen worked with builder Mark De Mattei and his construction company to design every interior detail, from the style of the door and ceiling moldings to the choice of floorings to the Annieglass dishes in the dining room.

Cohen points out that the house is filled with "subtle repetitions" of the squares and verticals basic to bungalow and Arts and Crafts-style homes. Additionally, she says she "capitalized" on the movement's favored materials of glass, iron and wood.

Using those materials, she created some very dramatic design statements.

In the entry hall, the stairway eschews wooden railings in favor of slumped glass made to her design specification by UltraGlas, with each panel held in place by custom welded ironwork.

Each room in the house offers a surprise of one sort or another. The master bathroom is all glass, including amber glass tiles, linen-textured glass counters and art-glass bowls that serve as sinks.

In the laundry room there are cabinet doors that swivel, with storage pockets on one side. In the study off the entryway, shoji-screen-style panels move to reveal a built-in bar, a bookcase and even the doorway to the adjacent bathroom. And in the living room, the fireplace surround is made of colored concrete with bits of yellow stoplight glass, which Counter Production of Berkeley recycled into the mix.

At first glance in the kitchen, you may not notice the lack of counter space. It's a deliberate decision on Cohen's part. She says, "Everything centers around the cooking island; all the counter space you need is on the island." And if all the space isn't needed, the corner that is a butcher block on stainless-steel racks can be rolled to another area.

In the family room, which opens off the kitchen, she designed built-in seating around two edges of the room, with storage boxes that slide underneath.

On the lower level of the house, the surprises take the form of unexpected artwork in the light wells off the exercise and guest rooms. Campbell sculptor Tony Lynott provided the sculptures visible through the windows, as well as a sculptured fountain that is visible from the dining room.

Cohen is particularly pleased to spotlight Lynott's work, as well that of others.

"I have a lot of people I've worked with locally that I wanted to feature, and they were all wonderful in supporting our effort," she says.

One of those artists is Treg Silkwood of Silkwood Glass in San Jose, who provided blown-glass seashells as living-room accents and blown-glass stones for one of the baths.

Staff designer Okon also did custom art pieces throughout the house, in addition to working with the rest of Cohen's team.

Visitors to the Sunset houses are given a guide to each house, with articles about using glass tiles throughout the house and how to show off family photos to their best advantage. There are also do-it-yourself projects such as making dish gardens using cactus and succulents and a message-center cabinet with a bulletin-board front.

Additionally, there are resource listings for each house, with information on where each item in the house came from or who made it and how to contact them.

Even now, Cohen admits some trepidation about accepting the Sunset assignment. She had submitted her portfolio for last year's Idea House in Willow Glen, but that job went to McDonald & Moore. She was encouraged to try again this year by builder De Mattei, who did a remodel for last year's house, as well as building this year's side-by-side Idea Houses.

"I've worked with Mark several times. I've done his offices, and he said, 'Whatever you want to do, go ahead.' Some people said, 'You want to do what?', but in the end they were proud of what they were able to do," says Cohen, citing the iron and glass railing as an example of "using materials in ways they're not meant to be used."

"Sunset really let us go, and I wasn't sure they would," she says. "They gave us a lot of latitude."

Sunset Editor-in-Chief Katie Tamony seems as pleased as Cohen with the partnership. At an opening reception, Tamony said, "Every room has an idea I want to use in my house. It's filled with exciting, innovative ideas."

Builder De Mattei was also effusive, saying, "Bethe did a phenomenal job."

Photograph by Erin Day Arts and Crafts: The Sunset home designed by Bethe Cohen Interior Design Associates incorporated ideas of major designers from the Arts and Crafts movement, particularly those of Greene and Greene and Frank Lloyd Wright. The American bungalow style used these elements and modernized the look in the master suite.

Restaurants and residences are her firm's specialty. Among the local restaurants she's designed are Paolo's in San Jose and Aqui in Willow Glen. She also designed the new Cafe Primavera when it moved from Willow Glen to Los Gatos. At times the mix has been fifty-fifty commercial and residential, but with the current economic slump, Cohen is finding her work is now about 70-percent residential.

With more than 2,000 people touring the house each weekend and the upcoming feature on it in Sunset, Cohen realizes she is getting the widest exposure of her career.

She says it's too early to tell how it will play out, but last year's Sunset Idea House designer says to expect a lot of reaction.

"It has given us extreme exposure," says Patricia McDonald, who did the 2002 house in Willow Glen with her partner Marcia Moore. "We're still getting calls and it's been a year. People introduce us as the people in Sunset. It's a big deal.

"It was worth the time and effort," she says. "You couldn't buy the exposure and publicity you get."

Cohen agrees with McDonald about the experience being a positive one. "It's been great," she says. "I feel like somebody gave us a grant. It was the most exciting thing, being able to work creatively as a team, to have the opportunity and the challenge, I felt like a kid in a candy store."

Sunset Idea Houses are open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $18 general, $15 for seniors on Fridays only; free for children 5 and under. No wheelchair access. Free parking and shuttle service to the houses are available at the municipal parking lot on Los Gatos-Saratoga Road between University and North Santa Cruz Avenues in Los Gatos. Information: (800) 786-7375 or http://www.sunset.com/go/ih1.htm.

Bethe Cohen Design Associates is located at150 E. Campbell Ave., #102, Campbell. For more information call 408.379.4051 or visit the website at http://www.bethecohen.com.