Winnetka-based interior designer Eric Ceputis is soft-spoken and reserved. All that changes, though, when he talks about the carefully chosen art and furnishings he and his partner, graphic designer David Williams, have collected over the last 17 years. He becomes animated as he describes their finds.
“Some of the most innovative pieces we have are Italian, like Joe Columbo’s Oluce lamp that diffuses light from the top and bottom, and Achille Castiglione’s Arco lamp, this enormous arching torchiere that balances on a small marble pedestal. Or Enzo Mari’s Box chair, which was named for the fact that it dismantles to fit in a box.” n Sometimes, he says, he goes on a “buying frenzy” when he finds the right item. “I love Gaetano Pesce’s work, and when he started making vessels in the ’90s, I’d call Moss [the New York design store that represents Pesce] every two weeks to see what came in. David would roll his eyes every time another box arrived.”
And he is dogged in pursuit of whatever he sets his sights on. There were “these incredible stainless-steel coffee tables
Joe D’Urso designed for Knoll in the mid-’80s. We wanted them desperately, but they were so technically difficult to make that very few were produced. It took us almost four years to track them down.”
The tables “are so finely crafted and minimal they remind me of a Donald Judd sculpture,” he says. “In fact, I mentioned that to Joe and he told me that Judd was his inspiration for those tables.”
Not only is Ceputis friends with the celebrated minimalist designer, he took D’Urso along when he and Williams went to buy the pieces. “I forgot to introduce him to the dealer, and when we asked Joe if the glass was original, the dealer said, ‘How would he know?’ “I said, ‘He designed them,’ and the guy’s jaw dropped,” Ceputis recalls.
Other items are a result of Ceputis’ impulsive streak. He commissioned a Higgins Glass Rondelay screen in the late 1980s, when the couple could ill afford it. “We were just getting established in our fields,” he says. “David nearly killed me.”
In retrospect, both men value the piece for its transformational impact on their foyer. And when a friend returned from Paris to report she had spotted a Dan Friedman U.S.A. table in a gallery at a relatively affordable price, “I sent off a check the next day,” he says.
Actually, Ceputis has something intriguing to point out about every piece they own. That terrazzo table in the living room? “Ettore Sottsass asked Shiro Kuramata to do it for the Memphis collection, but I couldn’t afford it then. I bought from a local dealer last year, and it was still in its original crate.” A Harry Bertoia mono-print? “He wasn’t hierarchical and considered his furniture, prints and sculptures all equally important.” The Eames dining chairs? “Harry Bertoia worked on those with the Eameses, then left their studio because he didn’t get any design credit. He went to work for Knoll and the rest is history.”
The stories make clear that collecting is not a haphazard pursuit for either man.
Ceputis has always been interested in Modern design, and started collecting rare illustrated books on the subject when he was still in high school, and Williams used to draw streamlined corporate logos for play as a child. The jump to furniture and art was inevitable once they grew up and had some disposable income.
They base their choices on more than aesthetics. “We’re both drawn to Modernism and [to] design that has been informed by this paradigm, and we always look for pieces that make a strong statement about their time,” Ceputis explains. “We’re interested in who designed them, the period they were done in, the ideas they embody and how they relate to the overall careers of their creators.”
Their collection of Swiss post-World War II posters illustrates their modus operandi. They both admire the renowned graphic designer Armin Hofmann, who was their professor when they attended the Yale Summer Program in Graphic Design in Switzerland. “We looked for eight years until we found the pieces he did that were most significant to us, then bought them. These were in his one-man show at MOMA in 1981,” Ceputis says.
They also made a recent foray into Modernist photography done at Chicago’s Institute of Design in the 1930s and 1940s by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Gyorgy Kepes. They discovered the work at a local gallery and were attracted to its experimental approach. The pieces they’ve acquired are supplanting an 120-strong poster collection on their walls; all but five are now in storage.
Given the nature of their possessions, they made their home a Modernist duplex condominium in Evanston. But Ceputis longed for a garden, so they decided to buy a home in the area. It required a two-year search.
When their real estate agent took them to a 1960s tri-level, they balked. “It looked like Colonial Revival from the outside, so we didn’t want to go in,” Ceputis recalls. Fortunately, the agent prevailed, and they found “an architecturally significant mid-Century show house inside . . . This was 1999, but it was a perfectly preserved time capsule from 1963.”
From the foyer, he says, “you could look straight out through the back wall of the house, which was all glass and overlooked a 150-foot-deep wooded yard. The front of the house didn’t reflect the true nature of the place at all. We still don’t know why the architect designed it that way, but we knew it was the right place for us.”
After saving for two years, they have done the first floor, which entailed gutting the kitchen and installing new hardwood floors. Next up is the second floor. But for now, they have a home with the kind of architectural integrity that jibes with the art and furnishings they own. Save for the front facade. “We’ve learned to live with it,” groans Ceputis.
———-
RESOURCES
Interior design: Eric Ceputis, Harvin Associates, Glencoe. Dining area: Joe D’Urso Supper table-Donghia Furniture, Merchandise Mart, Chicago; Eames dining chairs and Armin Hofmann posters and Mexican festival masks-personal collection; Dan Friedman’s U.S.A. table-Gallery Neotu, Paris. Living room: B+B Italia sofa and chaise-Luminaire, Chicago; Achille Castiglione Arco lamp-Source of Light, Chicago; Hans Wegner Papa Bear chair-Brayton International, Merchandise Mart; Joe D’Urso coffee tables-Converso Modern, www.conversomod.com; Enzo Mari’s Box chair-Arts 220, Winnetka; Eero Saarinen pedestal table-Wright, Chicago; 50th Anniversary Eames rosewood folding screen-Herman Miller, Mart; cowskin rug-Edelman Leather, Mart; throw (on chaise)-Museum of Modern Art Store, New York. Foyer: Eames La Chaise-Vitra, New York; Glass Roundelay screen-Higgins Glass Studio, Riverside; Andre Kertesz photograph-Stephen Daiter Gallery; Angelo Mangiarotti Skipper table-Casati Gallery, Chicago. Kitchen: Kitchen system-Bulthaup, Chicago; Stitz Stools-Vecta, Mart.
