Suzanne Goodwin had a keen visual eye. She knew just what piece would make a room pop.
Her ability to transform houses into elegant and sophisticated living spaces made her well known throughout the Twin Cities and attracted repeat customers to her one-woman interior design studio.
"She was very good at understanding what the client wanted, rather than what she wanted," said her husband, David Goodwin. "She always listened."
Goodwin, a gregarious designer known for her brilliant smile and a hearty laugh, died Aug. 20 of the extremely rare and aggressive Creutzfeldt Jakob disease. She was 75.
Born June 1, 1944, in Minneapolis, she exhibited a flair for fashion and developed striking features at a young age, relatives said. The former beauty queen — who served as the Hopkins Raspberry Festival queen and Aquatennial princess — caught David's eye in homeroom at Hopkins High School. The sweethearts dated for several years into college before calling it quits.
Goodwin married and divorced, then reconnected by chance with David seven years later at a Perkins restaurant. He'd never moved on. "I stayed in love with Sue," he said. They had been married for 47 years when she died.
Nearly a decade after earning her bachelor's degree in child psychology from the University of Minnesota, Goodwin returned to school for an interior design degree — all while raising three young children.
She built a contemporary portfolio at Design Mark collaborative before launching her namesake business, Suzanne Goodwin and Associates Interior Design, in 2001.
