Kathe Telingator likes to tell the story of an old friend’s first visit to the Wicker Park home she shares with her husband, Dan Mitchell, and their two children. The friend commented, “If I didn’t know this was your house, I would know it was your house.” That’s because, Telingator says, “the house is such a reflection of our collective sensibility that’s evolved over the years.”
“What we’ve amassed, we’ve amassed over our 24-year history together,” she adds. Telingator, a producer of “Stories on Stage,” a production of Chicago Public Radio, and Mitchell, an architect and senior vice president with VOA Associates, met while juniors at the University of Michigan and have been together ever since, living in London and New York City before moving to Chicago 14 years ago.
As newcomers, they rented an apartment so they could learn the city before deciding where to buy. After a year, they started looking for finished homes.
“We had such a shared vision of what we were looking for that every place that we looked at that was finished was missing something,” explains Mitchell, who is currently project director for the new Prentice Women’s Hospital at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “As time went on we started looking at fixer-uppers and, ultimately, gut buildings,” he adds.
When their real estate agent showed them an abandoned building in Wicker Park, they proclaimed, “This is it.” But the agent thought they were “insane,” Telingator says. “The walls were pink, plaster was falling off the ceiling, floors were completely destroyed by water damage, the only thing in the kitchen was a slop sink and there was a burned-out car in the back yard.”
But they were looking for potential, and “this house had everything,” says Mitchell. They were drawn to Wicker Park because of the ethnic mix. “At the time it was full of artists and artists’ galleries and studios,” he says. “We were very taken with the flavor of the neighborhood–this was much more akin to the neighborhoods we had been in, in New York.”
“The house was clearly the worst house on a good block,” says Mitchell. “It had wonderful architectural character, a double lot, high ceilings and lots of light,” he adds. “It was in such bad shape we knew we could tear the interior down to the base structure and do what we wanted while preserving the few salvageable historical elements of this landmark house.”
Mitchell found it challenging to be his own client. Having always rented, the couple had only decorated, never renovated. “Now that we had the freedom to take down or demolish, we obsessed a lot,” he says. “I worked very hard to sustain the original character, the flow of spaces, but with a much more contemporary look at materials.”
Indeed, it was that modernist point of view along with an eclectic collection of art and liberal use of color that the couple’s friend found so characteristic.
In the living room, Mitchell saved original classical features such as the fireplace, windows, pocket doors and moldings to provide historic reference to an otherwise contemporary decor. Cable lighting is strung across the 12-foot high ceilings. Furnishings of neutral colors and clean lines set the stage for an astonishing array of art.
The piece over the fireplace was done by a Korean artist who works with metal screen. When lit, its forms cast wonderful shadows in the room. On the cocktail table stands a West African ceremonial headpiece made of porcupine quills and feathers. A small maquette by Harry Bertoia given to Mitchell’s father (a painter, painting instructor at Cranbrook Academy in Michigan, curator of the museum there and later president of the art academy) sits on the mantle.
In the dining room, a mustard-colored wall highlights a favorite painting done by a student of Mitchell’s father.
Lavender wraps a wall that leads to a large, open kitchen/family room infused with light. Here, simple materials are offset by bursts of color. Vibrant blue, green and yellow make this a delightful hub for family life.
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RESOURCES
Living room/dining room detail: Chairs-Bernhardt, Merchandise Mart, Chicago; coffee table-Luminaire, Chicago; lamps on mantle-Artemide, Chicago; West African ceremonial hat on table-Douglas Dawson Gallery, Chicago; African musical instrument on table, hand-painted figure on floor leaning against fireplace, lamp in corner and Harry Bertoia sculpture on mantelpiece-personal collection; art over fireplace untitled by Park sung-tae-Pyo Gallery, Seoul, Korea; four Maggie Taylor photos titled “Birthday Girl,” “Southern Gothic,” “Woman Holding Horse” and “The Reader”-Laurence Miller Gallery, New York City. Dining room detail: Chairs-Luminaire, Chicago; dining table-Crate & Barrel. Family room/kitchen: Late 1940s Sears Formica and chrome table and chairs-personal collection; bowl on table-Crate & Barrel; rug, couch, chairs-Luminaire; family room table-Room & Board; mobile titled “Maquette for Sarasota” 1997 by Tim Prentice-Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York; painting on blue wall titled “Blueground” by Wallace Mitchell (owner’s father); photo on green wall above-“Hamdryas Baboon” 1989 by James Balog, Halsted Gallery, Birmingham, Mich.; photo on green wall below-“Zemurray Gardens, Louisiana 2000” by Lynn Geesaman, Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago; banister design-Dan Mitchell. Den detail: Photo titled “Three Ballerinas, Oaxaca, Mexico, 2000” by Jack Spencer-Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago; chairs-Luminaire; rug-“Wind Swept” by John Gunther, purchased from artist; table-Room & Board, Chicago; green fabric bowl-Museum of Contemporary Art Store, Chicago; vase-stylist prop; chair by front door, Cranbrook School’s dining chair designed by Eliel Saarinen-personal collection. Master bedroom: Bed, side tables-Luminaire; lamps by Wendy Stevens-Alloy Design Inc.; silver table-Luminaire, Chicago; photograph titled “Tulip Parrotts III” 1998, by Amy Lamb-Edward Carter Gallery, New York; bedding-Kachi-bachi, Chicago.
