Trendy Homeowners
Embrace Stained Glass

For James Tashie, a 52-year-old theater executive, taking a shower is almost a spiritual experience.

No, Mr. Tashie isn't a clean fanatic. He's just installed two stained-glass windows in his Memphis, Tenn., bathroom. "It makes me feel more meditative, maybe even a bit religious," says Mr. Tashie.

Stained glass, long the stalwart of church windows, has made occasional forays into the odd house or two. But suddenly it's turning up everywhere in the house -- from living-room furniture to car parks.

Jody Slavek, a Redmond, Wash., lawyer, for example, recently installed a 16-square-foot stained-glass rendition of orbiting planets and a comet in her garage. Art Glass Technologies, Duvall, Wash., just put the finishing touches on a $7,000 stained-glass bathtub stall in a house outside Seattle. And a line of shower doors with a stained-glass motif is now a best-seller for Kohler Co., Kohler, Wisc.

Dan Oppenheimer, a glass designer in Memphis, credits hippies with jump-starting the stained-glass craze 20 years ago. "Stained glass came back in the late '70s and early '80s, mostly by hippies making candles and macrame," says Mr. Oppenheimer. When he first started his business, most of his customers just wanted windows and skylights. In the past two years, demands have become quirkier, veering to Jacuzzis, dinner tables and tombstones.

Fueling this trend is people's current obsession with their bathrooms and the re-introduction of color in the home. And as curtains are becoming passe, so is privacy. "Glass is the only thing that lets the out-of-doors light inside," says antiques expert Terry Koval.

While stained-glass-making was once the province of craftsmen and art dealers, now mass distributors have entered the game, selling pricey ready-made imitations. The shower-stall doors Kohler makes, called Basilica, cost about $1,000. They also have diamonds embedded in their corners, and are made from clear glass that has been painted, not stained.

Such liberty-taking has raised the hackles of some stained-glass purists. "I don't think I'd call it art and I don't think I'd call it stained glass," says Richard Gross, editor of the trade quarterly Stained Glass Magazine. "But I do know I wouldn't pay the $1,100-plus they're asking for it." (Kohler sales manager Gustav Gopon dismisses the criticism. "What is art?" he asks rhetorically.)

Certainly, Kohler's version is less expensive than the authentic stuff. Custom designer Jean Myers, owner of an architectural firm in Fairfield, Calif., charges as much as $400 a square foot for design and construction of stained-glass panels.

But price was no deterrent for Patsy Chamberlain, who ordered a work from Ms. Myers. "It's more like a piece of art for us," she says.

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