For a first effort, “Swans d’Or,” or “Golden Swans,” the 1998 Barrington Designer Showcase House sponsored by the Barrington Junior Women’s Club Inc., is an impressive accomplishment.
For starters, the 5-acre grounds surrounding this imposing shingle-style home in Barrington Hills have no fewer than 13 different garden areas.
The interior has several knockout spaces. The French country-style kitchen and breakfast nook by Adele L. Lampert of Page One Interiors in Barrington has Old World flavor and warmth. Kitchens with a chicken theme are a time-honored classic; a charming feature of this one is the collection of ceramic cluckers in a dark green, antiqued cupboard. The roosters in the stained-glass windows of the nearby breakfast nook fit right in.
Shea Lubeke of Shea Lubecke & Associates of Barrington shows off her skill in creating romantic rooms in the Continental parlor. She has used unconventional combinations of trendy blue-green colors. The room has a dreamy, underwater feeling of repose because of pistachio walls, the aqua border of an exquisite silk Chinese carpet from Oscar Isberian of Evanston and window treatments of dramatic aqua silk draperies detailed with sky blue silk in scalloped bands and chartreuse ribbon at the hems.
On the second floor, a study by Lori Lennon of Lori Lennon & Associates in Deerfield demonstrates Lennon’s ability to take an awkward space and turn it into an attractive retreat–this one with a steel spiral staircase next to a row of lovely arched windows.
The room that makes you want to move right in, however, is “Tuscany in Barrington,” the master bedroom done with a superb sense of elegant restraint by Marsha Jones of Marsha Jones Interior Design in Wheaton. A big, old-fashioned wood bed with carved headboard piled high like a sundae with whipped-cream white antique linens and lacy pillows is the focal point of one end. At the other end is a sitting area, lovely as a still life, with painted frescoes of ivy on the ceiling–a nice touch for a room that looks out on the gardens. This is a reflection of the trend of bringing the outdoors in.
The use of pale colors with lots of texture on walls, windows and floor also creates a sybaritic sanctuary of the adjoining master bath by Pamela Vogel of The Gilded Nest in Barrington, the highlight of which is the double vanity. This master bedroom/bathroom suite alone is worth the price of admission, so artfully is it composed.
Unfortunately there are a few disappointments and glitches. There is little continuity in the showhouse. The entire children’s wing has rooms that are decoratively hyperactive–they might have worked better with some editing. The program book does not follow the tour and mixes upstairs and downstairs rooms.
Nevertheless there are ideas that visitors can take home, such as the “Cabana Shower” by Nancy DuCharme of DuCharme Designs in Algonquin on the second floor, a striped tent over the tub in a children’s bathroom that playfully pretends to be a bath by the sea.
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THE FACTS
`Swans d’Or”
What: The 1998 Barrington Designer Showcase House, sponsored by the Barrington Junior Women’s Club Inc.
Where: Meet the continuously running shuttle bus on weekdays at the Foundry Shopping Mall, 710 W. Northwest Hwy. (Illinois Highway 14 and Hart Road), and on Saturdays and Sundays at 1000 Hart Rd.
When: Today through May 24
Hours: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays; 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursdays (designers will be at the house to answer questions); 11 a.m. to 4 p.m Saturdays; noon to 5 p.m. Sundays
Admission: $15
Call: 847-734-5320
