Remodeling an older residence is never an easy undertaking. It’s particularly challenging when the residence in question is more or less un-changed from its original Beaux-Arts Revival grandeur and the architect is an unrepentant modernist.
This was the situation facing John Ronan when his clients asked him to rework their unit in a gracious 1925 apartment building designed by Benjamin H. Marshall, architect of the Drake, Blackstone and Edgewater Beach hotels. Like his contemporary Howard Van Doren Shaw, Marshall was a fashionable architect whose clientele–the burgeoning Jazz-Age bourgeoisie–kept him quite busy during the luxury building boom of the 1920s. He helped persuade them that life as an urban “cliff-dweller” could be just as sumptuous–and prestigious–as inhabiting a single- family home.
Seventy-five years after its construction, this particular skyscraper remains one of the city’s most coveted addresses. Some of its grandly proportioned apartments retain such charming original features as commercial-style refrigeration units in the kitchens and silver vaults larger than the maid’s room. Although these amenities often prove superfluous to current needs, many of the occupants have taken great pains to preserve and maintain them, as they do the decorative detailing throughout their apartments.
Others, like the owners of this unit, have taken a markedly different approach, reworking it almost completely to provide 21st Century aesthetics and functionality without losing its more traditional flow and character–“what drew them there in the first place,” Ronan suggests. The finished result illustrates how comfortably a completely contemporary environment can sit within an assertively traditional setting.
Jeffrey and Naomi (they asked us not to use their last names) moved to this apartment from a house on the North Shore, just after crossing the threshold of empty-nesterhood. They tried to find an apartment that would replicate, as closely as possible, the experience of living in their spacious single-family suburban villa.
The apartment they chose actually dated from around the same time as the Georgian where they had raised their children, and it shared some of the house’s stately, formal features. But for their new residence, Naomi says, they were looking for something a little more contemporary, primarily to accommodate their growing collection of contemporary art.
The unit they purchased had been updated over the decades, but retained its quirky original plan. A centerpiece of the remodeling involved reconfiguring the kitchen and service areas–a warren of little rooms and passageways, designed with scant thought to beauty, because the family members whom Benjamin Marshall envisioned living there weren’t intended to see them. A dearth of live-in help on the premises today allowed Ronan to replace the servant’s quarters with a billiard room, and to expand the kitchen substantially by removing the service hall that separated it from the dining room.
The dining room itself no longer exists, actually. The amply scaled living room, overlooking Lake Shore Drive, offers several options for dining with guests, and the sleek, inviting kitchen is an agreeable setting for family meals. They now use the old dining room space as a family room, featuring comfortable seating and a wall of electronic entertainments. It leads into the kitchen through a set of pocket doors, which are often left open while entertaining. “Instead of having a room we use once a month,” says Jeffrey, “it’s one we use every day.”
Ronan’s strengths as a designer–he recently beat out such “starchitects” as Peter Eisenman and Morphosis in a major design competition for a suburban New York public school–include his judicious selection of materials and finishes. That proved particularly important in what, except for some of the floors, is an entirely new interior.
While most of his choices illustrate his continued devotion to modernist virtues, Ronan sensibly opted to retain all the crown moldings. He removed old paneling in many areas, however, and replaced it either with new plaster walls or millwork. For consistency’s sake, Ronan specified woodwork fabricated of anigre throughout, but it’s finished in such a variety of figurations and colorings that it looks like a different material in each application.
This handsomely finished shell provides a fine backdrop for the quiet, subdued furnishings: a melding of many items the couple already had and simple, well-scaled contemporary pieces they chose with assistance from Bruce Rahm, an interior decorator from San Francisco who had worked with them on their previous residences.
When Rahm retired before the job was completed, the couple turned to Chicago-based Douglas Levine to help them complete it. Acknowledging that “it’s never easy coming in on a situation that’s partially finished,” Levine was able to tie it together. Because the couple had pieces they wanted to reuse and the neutral color palette was already established, and because Ronan had designed a number of major furniture elements, Levine saw his job as finding “beautiful furniture with beautiful silhouettes that accentuate the art.”
The assembled artworks reflect the couple’s personal and eclectic tastes rather than popular trends in collecting. Although Jeffrey says “Naomi is responsible for everything good in the apartment,” he admits to having surprised her on her birthday one year with a splendid Jun Kaneko ceramic installation. It makes a startling, dramatic first impression.
Ronan says the consistent high quality in design and workmanship speaks to the height of his clients’ expectations and the depth of their involvement in the project. “Naomi has the best design sense of any client I’ve ever worked with,” he says. “We would discuss a detail like a table edge for half an hour. I would hire her to do quality control for my practice in a minute.”
Clearly he realizes this kind of commitment presented a rare opportunity. “I got spoiled with them,” he concedes. “With all clients, you do the best job you can within certain limits, but most are only willing to go so far. Here, everything had to be the best.”
Which seems to be exactly what they got.
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RESOURCES
Architect–John Ronan, Architect, Chicago. General contractor–Tip Top Builders, Skokie. Wall paneling, wood trim–Highland Park Millwork, Highland Park. Stonework–Poma Marble, Rosemont. Living room: Mattaliano couches covered in Galant silk velvet–Holly Hunt Chicago, Merchandise Mart, Chicago; round table and chairs: J. Robert Scott, Chicago; Philippe Hurel rectangular tables (against wall)–Summerville Collection, Mart; Sue Suster rugs–Carpets by Design, Mart; coffee table, upholstered bench, piano and all other furnishings–personal collection. Gallery: Cedric Hartman standing lamps–personal collection; Eno sofa–Bright Chair Company, Merchandise Mart; John Boone tables–Tui Pranich, Mart.
