“Our style is simplistic and traditional, very Old World and definitely not fussy. This place is still a work in progress. We developed many of our skills through the work we’ve done on this house.”
Hugh Sollo is talking about his home, a 1919 Prairie-style home in Kankakee’s historic Riverview area, which he shares with Allan Smessaert, his partner in life and work. These landscape and interior designers are owners of Design Partners, a company through which they create lavish landscapes and sumptuous living spaces.
Sollo again: “Neither of us has had any formal training. The work we’ve done has all been self-taught. We wanted to do the renovations on the house so they would be historically accurate. Finding tradespeople to do just that was pretty difficult, at least in this area, and we’re very particular.”
Sollo and Smessaert are soft-spoken and eloquent, their conversation quick and often witty. They frequently answer questions in unison.
“It’s like an `in-stereo’ effect. I think our minds think alike more often than not,” Smessaert says.
The harmony between the two stands in contrast to their self-described acrimonious beginning. Sollo, 37, and Smessaert, 38, met in 1983, when both were working at Marshall Field’s on State Street in Chicago.
“We hated each other at first. We didn’t speak for over a year,” Smessaert explains.
“Personality-wise, there was a complete and total clash. In fact, people couldn’t believe we would ever get together. We were so very different,” Sollo adds.
But in 1984 they discovered a common interest in gardening and began a relationship. The pair would often escape the frenzy of city life and retreat to Sollo’s hometown of Kankakee, where they would spend their weekends.
“We began looking at neat old houses for fun, and we found this one and fell in love with it. It was the only one we’d seen that had not been renovated in any way, with the exception of a new furnace that was put in a few years prior to the sale of the home,” Smessaert says.
Because the house had sat abandoned for two years, overgrown weeds and grass completely obscured the three-car garage. But they bought it in 1986 and transformed the seven-room house, with its stucco facade and generous porch, into a showcase of their various talents while leaving much of the home’s history intact.
“We gave the house a major face lift,” Sollo says. “Everything done was mostly deep cosmetic work.”
Although the updating of the plumbing and electrical work was done professionally, Sollo and Smessaert tackled everything else, from rebuilding window frames to sewing elegantly pleated skirts with gentle swags for the dining room chairs. A turn-of-the-century stove is the focal point of the kitchen, where Sollo, who specializes in paint finishes, created faux parquet flooring.
The walls and ceilings throughout the dwelling were stripped of layers of wallpaper and painted with rich, deep colors achieved through a painting technique called glazing (the layering of thin transparent colors of a paint/glaze mixture). The result is a warm backdrop for their ornate antique collection. Luxurious fabrics abound, as much of the furniture has been meticulously reupholstered or slipcovered by Sollo “with great attention to detail that is unmatched,” Smessaert says.
But their desire for perfection is often felt as a painful part of being creative, according to Sollo.
“We can’t go to a restaurant for dinner without mentally redesigning the space. It’s like a curse because when something doesn’t meet your expectations, it’s painful. They’re stupid things,” he says. “Stupid things that no one else would ever pay attention to. We agonize over every single detail. It’s also our greatest strength. That’s what we’re recognized for.”
Both men have a knack for transforming ordinary tasks into artistic endeavors. For example, the roofer they’d hired to install a cedar-shingled roof on their house was dismissed midway through the project after Sollo and Smessaert discovered he had worked “with no forethought as to how the shingles should fit together. The shading of the shingles was not uniform in color. He was simply putting them on in the order in which they came out of the packaging. We found the only way to have it done properly was to do it ourselves,” Sollo says. They took the job over, even though they had never installed a roof before.
“Whenever there’s a new task presented to us, we often read books to learn how to do the job,” says Smessaert, who started the job by ripping off the shingles that lay haphazardly on the roof and carefully separating the material by size.
“I was following a random pattern, being certain not to place two darker pieces together,” he says.
The result is an attractive cedar shingled roof that took three months of part-time effort to complete.
“It’s like needlepoint. It’s fun as you’re filling in the space and seeing the design take shape. You don’t want to put it down. You want to keep going. That’s what the roof project was like,” Smessaert explains. (Needlepointing is another skill both have mastered.)
In creating a home of comfortable elegance, the pair realized this was the work that best suited them. In 1988, Sollo and Smessaert quit their jobs at Marshall Field’s and threw themselves into various types of freelance creative work. One of their first jobs took place during the holiday season at the Michigan Avenue and Oak Brook Crate & Barrel stores, where they were responsible for assembling and lighting the Christmas trees. They also designed holiday decor with outdoor lighting and interior greenery for residential clients in Barrington, Wilmette, Batavia and Kankakee.
In 1990, they were commissioned by the Naturalizer and Florsheim shoe store chains to create decorative store props, items such as hundreds of Christmas packages of various size and shape, wrapped in craft paper, hand-painted with metallic and watercolor paints and tied with elegant ribbons.
“When people ask what we do for a living, we respond by saying, `What don’t we do?’ ” Smessaert explains. “Every few years, Hugh gets creative, and he makes up these beautiful items with bits of scraps stockpiled in our basement.”
From 1992 to 1996, Sollo and Smessaert created a line of home decorations that included tabletop arrangements, topiaries, tea cozies, decorative pillows and tissue box covers “that are sophisticated works of art,” says Cyndi LaBarge, co-owner of City Source, a Chicago housewares boutique that stocks some of the Design Partners’ creations. Sollo and Smessaert appreciate the beauty of simplicity and the importance of restraint, LaBarge says, and “are very detail-oriented with their work. Their needlepointing is exquisite. In fact, the first thing we ever had stolen from our shop was one of the decorative pillows made by Hugh and Allan.”
Their skills in horticulture and design are what keep them busy these days. They cultivate lush gardens “with such creativity that when people drive by, they take a second look,” says Kim Baker, a client of Design Partners. “I wanted something different, something unique. I didn’t want the standard landscaping you see in everyone else’s back yard. Everyone knows Hugh and Allan are the best. They’ve created a real treasure for me.”
In addition to designing and installing a complete landscape for Baker’s newly constructed home in Bourbonnais, Design Partners also outlined an area in the back yard to accommodate an in-ground pool; designed a handsome storage building to hold pool equipment; and selected distinctive fencing that complements the home.
“They are so very creative and very inspiring to be around. Hugh is so focused on detail, it’s unbelievable,” says Baker, who relays this example of his scrutiny: Sollo noticed that the back of each section of the new fencing bore six minuscule screw holes that were unseen to Baker until Sollo brought them to her attention. He returned after the fence was built to fill in the small holes with a spackling compound and disguise them with green paint that matched the rest of the fencing.
Says Baker: “You really have a sense of comfort with these guys. They see all kinds of things that you just can’t.”
In their gardening, they choose plants that will provide blooms from March through October. They obtain plant material “wherever we have to go to get it,” Smessaert says, and won’t make a substitution if a plant isn’t yet available. They’ll wait patiently instead, and have driven as far north as Racine, Wis., and as far south as Springfield in search of a particular plant for a specific design. Fees for their landscaping work vary and depend on the amount of labor and plant material involved, but they’ve been paid as much as $35,000 for a job.
The Design Partners turned Charlene Dybedock’s fantasy of becoming an avid gardener into a reality. Both the front and back yards of Dybedock’s home are landscaped with a perennial garden designed to bloom from March to November with hardy plantings such as Rebecca yarrow, sedum, painted Japanese ferns, hosta and lady’s-mantle.
“There’s not a single day that I haven’t been excited about my yard,” says Dybedock of Kankakee. “The sight of it is such a joy. They do an exceptional job with landscaping. They’re very artistic when it comes to design and putting it all together. The textures and colors come together beautifully. They’re truly gifted.”
As the planting season ends, the designers will be busy with interior renovations at the Kankakee Historical Society.
“These two young men have worked on various projects with our curator in the past,” says Anne Chandler, director of the Kankakee Historical Society. “They help decorate for our annual Christmas gala. It’s quite an elaborate affair and takes nearly a month to prepare. I’m certain they’ll do a fine job with the renovations as well. They are very talented.”
Just a few years ago, they found it necessary to accept every landscape job that came their way. Without any advertising, their reputation and work ethic now afford them plenty of work. There is even a waiting list of clients seeking their creative services, yet Sollo and Smessaert share a modest attitude.
“It’s difficult trying to grasp the success we have had, and it’s wonderful knowing that we’re well-regarded in our community,” Sollo says. “We do the work for others as if we were doing it for ourselves.”
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Design Partners can be reached at 815-939-4308.
