When it comes to homes, space is a feature that’s hard to get right. At various times, there can be too little, too much or both.
Jennie and Paul Tashima experienced all of these.
First, they outgrew their 3,000-square-foot house in Lincoln Park, one of those narrow, boxy, four-story contemporaries with steep stairs and a postage-stamp yard.
“There was no room for the kids to run and play outside … and there was too much up and down [on the stairs] with the baby,” says Jennie, who started to feel the strain after her third child was born.
A house hunt for the right suburban spread followed, and in short order they bought a gracious old three-story French Manor-style home on the North Shore. It was more than quadruple the size of their city place, with almost an acre of land. But it needed a lot of work. “Nothing structural had been done in years, and the house didn’t flow,” says Jeff Harting, an architectural designer hired to help them with the project.
The interior of the house was dark, and the decor was “unrefined and inappropriate,” says Highland Park interior designer Stephanie Wohlner. “There were ornately carved decorative columns that didn’t fit in and were painted garish colors. And every room was a different color. Nothing was cohesive or respected the home’s architectural integrity.”
The good thing about its rundown state was that “we didn’t have to take two steps backwards to move one step forward,” says Harting. On the first floor, millwork and moldings were restored, the columns came out, a warren of four small rooms were transformed into an open, airy kitchen connected to a family area, and a breakfast room was torn down to its foundation, rebuilt with an octagonal footprint and given a soaring vaulted ceiling.
A master suite was carved out on the second floor, while the children’s bedrooms and a guestroom were reconfigured and all the bathrooms were updated.
A large third floor, which had been dormant because it could only be accessed through a narrow, dilapidated back stairway, was revitalized with a grand limestone staircase duplicating the one that rose from the first to second stories. “There was a circular space to handle it, but it was capped off. I think they never finished the staircase properly in the ’20s because they ran out of money,” speculates Harting. A home theater, playroom, exercise room, small kitchen and study area were installed on the now usable third floor.
The cosmetics were trickier. “It was an enormous place, so making the largest rooms warm and intimate, and giving the whole home a sense of consistency, was challenging,” Wohlner explains. Wohlner worked with Harting to unify and increase the millwork throughout the home, then painted all the public spaces, save for a paneled study, a creamy buff.
She asked Tashima to pick one favorite fabric she loved for grounding, and built a decorative palette around it. Tashima fell for a traditional toile that was golden camel, tomato red and cream, which is a focal point in the living room on a pair of gilded bergeres. The fabrics on the other pieces in the public spaces are in similar tones, but all are “the kind of textiles that get richer and acquire a burnished patina with age and use,” Wohlner explains.
Because the Tashimas lived in a contemporary home in the city, they had to buy everything anew and tried to pick pieces that respected the home’s historical style.
But “that didn’t mean we used period pieces. It would have looked too dowdy and staid,” Wohlner maintains. Instead, the designer opted for furnishings that paid homage to the period but were a bit less intricate, pairing them with two layers of accessories for balance–one with jewelry-like flamboyance to heighten the drama and the other clean-lined and spare for counterpoint and visual relief. With a sleek sisal carpet, simple burnished-wood pedestal tables and unpretentious window treatments, balanced by gilt-encrusted lighting and a flamboyant mirror, the living room is a perfect case in point.
After three years, the house is finally done. The spaces range from intimate to expansive; those that were too small–like the kitchen–have been enlarged, and those that were formidable have been tempered with good layouts.
Now the kids have room to run. And Jennie, who retired from her job as a trader in the financial industry when the family moved north to manage the home project, says, “It monopolized my life for three years. But now I miss all the action.”
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RESOURCES: Interior design: Stephanie Wohlner Design, Highland Park. Architectural design: R. Scott Javore & Associates Ltd., Glencoe (the credit for the architectural design of the Tashima home as published has been corrected in this text). P. 20: William IV ottoman–Charles Pollock Reproductions, Merchandise Mart, Chicago; sisal carpet–Village Carpet, Winnetka; leather chair–Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, Paris; table lamp–Peachtree Place, Northfield. P. 21: Rivoli chandelier and sconces–Niermann Weeks, Mart; dining chairs–Edward Ferrell Ltd., Mart; New Classics dining table–Holly Hunt Chicago, Mart; Column Basket toile de Jouy window treatments and dining chair skirts–Hinson & Co., Mart, fabricated through Stephanie Wohlner Design, Highland Park; reproduction limestone fireplace surround–Materials Marketing Corp., Chicago; fireplace screen–Horchow. P. 22: Stairway detail: Limestone pedestal and urn–Dennis & Leen, Mart; wool runner–Lewis Carpet, Northbrook; railing–European Ornamental Iron Works, Franklin Park. P. 22-23: Hanging fixture and sconces–Summer Hill, Mart,; rolled arm sofas–Stephanie Wohlner Design, Highland Park, covered in silk velvet by Scalamandre, Mart; Hamilton Bamboo bergeres–Holly Hunt Chicago, Mart, covered in Column Basket toile de Jouy, Hinson & Co., Mart; Dreiling side tables–Dessin Fournir, Mart; Venetian coffee table–Axis Furniture, Los Angeles; window treatments–fabricated through Stephanie Wohlner Design. P. 24: Bedroom: bed and bench–Country Swedish, www.countryswedish.com; bed crown and window treatments–fabricated through Stephanie Wohlner Design; fabric–Calico Corners, www.calicocorners.com; chaise–Stephanie Wohlner Design, upholstered in Kravet Fabrics, Mart; bookcase and dressers–collection of owner. Sunroom: Wicker furniture and fabric–Donghia Showrooms, Mart; window treatments–fabricated through Stephanie Wohlner Design, fabric, Donghia, Mart; ottoman–Stephanie Wohlner Design, fabric by Kravet Fabrics, Mart; end tables and lamps–collection of owner; chandelier–original to home.
