Just buy a glossy white refrigerator and call it done about 5K cheaper!

What style of refrigerator is it? If it is a bottom-freezer fridge, and it lines up, the drawers could be in the wood finish and the upper compartment could be gloss white.

Live wire, you're right about the white, of course, and I wish someone made a less expensive built-in refrigerator at 84" tall (it wouldn't even need dual evaporators or compressors, just fit the soace right :-)), but they don't. We have to buy something that will be a resale advantage, and around here, a fully-integrated paneled fridge is almost a requirement.

Palimpset, it is a bottom freezer, but the top of the freezer would not line up with the top of the bottom cabinets, which would make me crazy! Gotta be one or the other LOL!

White, then.

There is a GW'er named 2littlefishies with a marvelous 2tone kitchen, I am linking her post about where to place the color- it has lots of thoughts on this topic and lots of images.
One particular picture I thought might be helpful is below:

Here is a link that might be useful: 2littlefishies' where to place the yellow thread

I vote white.

BTW A Sub Zero compressor assembly is about $400 retail and an evaporator assembly $200. The high premium for a built-in fridge is largely the result of the diseconomies of scale.

White sounds like it would be the best choice, but posting some elevations in color would help with the decisions.

My vote is for wood from both an aesthetic and practicality point of view. We have a two tone kitchen with walnut lowers and white uppers, our refrigerator surround (which from one side looks similar to a built-In refrigerator) is walnut, so I may be bias!

I like the wood idea on the fridge, too.

Thanks for all your thoughts. Now that I've seen the Houzz picture local eater posted, I think it will be wood for both aesthetic (I don't really like white refrigerators) and practical reasons (the whole point is to avoid having to clean the front of the fridge constantly!)