This wouldn’t be a sad story, I promised. I would write about her happy collaboration with her late husband, Chad, and designer Kara Mann as they made plans to redecorate this pretty Chicago townhouse.
But that promise vanished, along with my third-party professionalism, when I realized that the wonderful partner Noreen McGuire was describing-this big-hearted, fun-loving guy who had passed away two years ago-was an old friend of my husband and mine from our downtown pre-kid days.
We’d lost touch and had never met Noreen, but we’d been devastated when we’d heard the news. Suddenly it was sad. All over again, really sad.
Joan Didion once said: “You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.” Noreen McGuire has clearly decided that she and her three daughters will not be walking away from this home and its memories any time soon. In coming to terms with their loss, the house became a way of keeping Chad close, a tangible reminder of a person who lit up every room he walked into. Emotionally, I was just going to have to catch up to them.
It has been 10 years now since the couple set out to build this house. “The detail is all Chad,” says McGuire. The thick moldings, the clever floor plan, even the brick walkways and terraces that surround the place had all been his idea and he wanted them perfect. “The contractor wanted to put a concrete slab in the outside space, saying no one will ever see it,” she says, “Chad disagreed. He said, ‘Noreen and I will see it. ‘ “
From the start, the house worked well for the family and their large group of friends. Their daughters-Lauren and twins Claire and Elizabeth-thrived in its sun-filled rooms, so when Kara Mann was brought in for some decorating advice, the couple simply wanted to do a bit of interior tweaking.
“We had talked about making changes and creating more spaces for the twins because Lauren was graduating and moving to a loft in Bucktown,” says McGuire. But then the worst happened and Chad’s 18-month-long battle with cancer was abruptly over.
“I called Kara a week after Chad died and said, ‘I want to do this project. I want to go to work,’ ” recounts McGuire.
“Noreen’s inspiration was to keep Chad’s spirit alive,” says Mann, at the time a partner in LaGrange Mann Interiors before starting her own business. “It was an intense project because of what had happened, but Noreen was so gung-ho. She and Chad had talked about it and really wanted it. It turned out to be one of the best projects I’ve ever worked on.”
The twins, now 12, quickly chimed in with their ideas. They decided that they would continue to share a room but that Lauren’s vacated bedroom should be transformed into The Girls Lounge. “It’s like their little studio apartment,” says McGuire, where they could hang out and watch TV. “It’s been a big hit.”
The twins’ bedroom is “more bohemian and low-key.” But when the time came for the sisters to pick bedspreads, they presented Mann with a dilemma. “I found these Donna Karan linens they loved,” Mann says, and she offered two ways to go with colors. But one sister liked the muted colors and the other one liked the more vivid palate. Solomon-like, Mann bought the duvet covers in both styles, took them apart and had them sewn together back-to-back. Each duvet is now bright on one side and muted on the other. The girls can flip the sides according to whose turn it is to make the beds.
Chad’s upbeat take on life permeates the whole house, but comes through most strongly in the room where he spent most of his time, the dining room, which doubles as a library. “It’s where his books and music are,” McGuire says, noting that she and the girls have adopted Chad’s habit of reading books and listening to music simultaneously. Mann wanted to maintain the old feeling of the dining room while giving it a facelift. The walls of the room remained dark, though changed from deep red to what Mann calls “cool brown.”
In the living room, where the girls like to sit and play their father’s piano, Mann created an intimate space centered on a striking antique Sultanabad rug and a classic American retro-mod Blackman Cruz sofa table. She finished it off with silk throw pillows she describes affectionately as “weird and quirky.”
“Noreen is hip,” says Mann, “I wanted the room to reflect that.”
Today, the project is finished, not as a tribute or a memorial to Chad-there have been plenty of those- but rather as the home he envisioned. McGuire and Mann have created a house where Chad is everywhere part and parcel of his family’s everyday life. That’s why this isn’t a sad story. It’s a love story. n
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RESOURCES Interior design: Kara Mann Design, Chicago. Dining room/library: Armchairs, table and footstool-personal collection; fabric on armchairs-Dragon Empress, Clarence House, Merchandise Mart, Chicago; Blenheim club chairs-Toscana, Holly Hunt, Mart; zebra pillows-Jim Thompson, Holly Hunt, Mart; curtain fabric-Bergamo, Holly Hunt, Mart; Sam Kasten handwoven rug-Stockbridge, Mass.; leather on footstool-Marrakech Mountain Pass, Great Plains, Holly Hunt, Mart; console horsehair panel inserts-Bergamo, Holly Hunt, Mart. Living room: Dunning sofa and Ellington wingback chairs-Dessin Fournir, Mart; sofa fabric-Rue de la Paix, Jim Thompson, Holly Hunt, Mart; chair fabric-Raphael damask, Nancy Corzine, Mart; pillow fabric on chairs-Glace, Bergamo, Holly Hunt, Mart; trim on pillows-Nobilis, Summer Hill, Mart; large vessel-Darcy Bonner & Associates, Chicago; elliptical sofa table-Blackman Cruz, Los Angeles; objects on sofa table-Ted Muehling, New York; Rockefeller armchair-Mattaliano, Chicago; fabric on armchair-Clarence House, Mart; Theirien stool-Holly Hunt, Mart. Passageway: Collection of antique pottery-Primitive Artworks and Pagoda Red, Chicago. The Girls Lounge: TOLB coffee table and LYST side table-Ralph Pucci International, New York; vases and tray on table-Jayson Home & Garden, Chicago; Maxalto Apta revolving armchair with B+B Suspiro fabric-Luminaire, Chicago; large standing Noguchi for Atari floor lamp-Room & Board, Chicago; small armchair-Vicente Wolf for Tex-Style, River Vale, N. J. Girls’ bedroom: Four-poster iron beds-Niermann Weeks, Mart; throw pillows-Jonathan Adler, Chicago; DKNY duvet, sheets and pillows-Bloomingdale’s Home, Chicago; canopy fabric-Missoni, Old World Weavers, Mart; large Serena chandelier-Oly Studio, Reno, N.Y. Foyer: Bureau-Formations, Holly Hunt, Mart; framed drawing-Ellsworth Kelly, Hazen Keay Art Advisory, New York.
