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Tour a Midcentury Modern Gem Preserved in Winnetka, Illinois
In the court of public opinion, acolytes of great architects are rarely treated as legends themselves. Take Chicago-area architect Don Erickson, who apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin from 1948 through 1951. Although the Chicago Tribune lauded Erickson’s work as “delicate, beautiful, and always original” after his death in 2006, local interior designer Jennie Bishop reports that most of his houses “are often purchased and torn down or so drastically changed that you can’t recognize them.”Bishop discovered an exception in 2021, when a friend in real estate suggested a meeting with clients who had just purchased the Winnetka, Illinois, residence that Erickson had designed for photographer Richard Boyer in 1966. “I went in blind and just gasped,” Bishop recalls of arriving at the impeccably preserved home, adding, “I was saying silent prayers that they would not rip things out or depart from Erickson’s vision.”Bishop sourced a circular sectional, designed by Adrian Pearsall, for the great room’s living area. She and one of the clients plan to replace its vintage upholstery when the homeowners’ two young sons are less rambunctious.
In the living area, a pair of lounge chairs upholstered in a Schumacher checkerboard pattern stand guard over an original fireplace.
Bishop’s invocations were answered quickly, when the husband and wife described their predilection for living in unique spaces. They also explained that they had promised the previous homeowner to steward this midcentury gem and envisioned a delicate renovation ahead. Bishop started the commission as cofounder of Chicago-based Studio Gild, and she completed the project under her recently launched AD PRO Directory firm Bishop Studio.The Winnetka residence features several hallmarks of a Frank Lloyd Wright–designed house. Applying Wright’s concept of “pressure and release” to the 6,000-square-foot interior, for example, Erickson created a skinny formal entry hall that he made even more narrow by arcing a raised fireplace hearth into the space. Just beyond the hearth, the newcomer overlooks a great room that is as expansive as the entry was constrained.“We didn’t want all the fixtures to look like they had been left there,” Bishop says of layering a contemporary lighting vocabulary into the well-preserved interior. For the kitchen island, she specified a Light Object 015 from Naama Hofman to shed strong uniform light on the work surface. The island’s Afternoon Plus stools are from DWR.
The kitchen’s perimeter cabinetry traces one of the orioles with which original architect Don Erickson had lined the west elevation of the house. The millwork was done by Abruzzo Kitchen & Bath.
The kitchen’s breakfast area, as seen from the hallway dividing the great room from the dining room: a Heritage Unicolor pendant from Taiwan-Lantern tops the custom table and banquette; leather sling dining chairs from CB2.
Other aspects of the house, such as its fan-patterned brick floors, historically evocative windows, and balletic ceilings, suggest that Erickson counted himself among the likes of A. Quincy Jones and Edward Durrell Stone—architects who were trying to reshape High Modernism for a popular American audience.Bishop determined that the Winnetka project required neither window replacement nor ceiling removal. At first, she planned to leave the enchanting brick floor untouched too. “We thought that its muted colors were original,” she says, “but we discovered a warmer palette underneath the kitchen appliances.” While Boyer and the homeowners who followed him had maintained the interior with almost religious devotion, their years of cleaning and coating the floors had unintentionally dulled their appearance. So began an exhaustive process of diamond sanding and resealing the surface, which Bishop admits caused moments of second-guessing: “It was painful to get to where we are, but now I’m super happy for the rusty and spicy colors that we achieved. We dramatically changed the house and honored it simultaneously.”A Maho sectional sofa by Wendelbo and a pair of vintage hammock chairs anchor the Florida room, which distinguishes itself from the great room by stepping down from the living area. The Florida room is oriented south to the patio.
Bishop completed the project’s other major intervention in a similar spirit. While redoing the primary and children’s bathrooms in the bedroom wing, the interior designer preserved the spaces’ organization into eight-by-eight-foot modules and specified surfaces featuring period-appropriate patterns and colors. To make the three-compartment primary bathroom more gracious, she converted a never-used sauna into a wet room that remains crowned in its original cedar.For the house’s furnishings, Bishop dotted the interior with antiques. For new and custom pieces, she leaned more toward complementing rather than aping the past. “We’re surrounded by so much wood in this house that we expressed ourselves with stone,” she cites as one example. Bishop also explains that the trio’s admiration for this palimpsest has only grown with time, so much so that the homeowners have granted her right of first refusal, should they someday decide to sell the house.The house is ostensibly L-shaped in plan, its east- and south-facing crook enfolding a generous patio area. Bishop and the homeowners are spreading the love by including the nest in a home tour hosted by Community House. The annual event raises funds for the local nonprofit and, this year, it promises to raise the profile of Erickson too.
Bishop reinvented the service entrance, located immediately adjacent to the three-bay garage, as a cozy entry wrapped in Cranes wallpaper by Milton & King.
“Nothing in this house is super precious,” Bishop says, noting that the homeowners enjoy entertaining at home. To wit, the designer created a double-pedestal dining room table topped in Jadore Quartzite “that could be danced upon.” It is overseen by a Rib Vault Light by Talbot & Yoon.
Within the great room, the Florida room’s glassed-in corner contains a vintage pedestal table surrounded by Crate & Barrel chairs upholstered in a House of Hackney bouclé. Bishop says she purchased and arranged the pieces on her own volition to help the then-unconvinced homeowners envision the vignette as a place for sipping wine or playing mah-jongg, “and they never left.”
The primary bedroom occupies a semidetached volume at the easternmost end of the house. Here, a walnut Feve Desk from Ferm Living overlooks a custom king-size bed finished in wine-colored Kirkby Design upholstery.
Like so many other original finishes in the house, the cedar ceilings in the primary bathroom suite were perfectly preserved. Bishop tacked a Mori pendant by RBW above the room’s middle module rather than tear into the cedar planks.
The primary bath is a suite of three eight-by-eight-foot modules linked by travertine flooring. Jupiter’s Axis Wall Sconces flank the double vanity.
The primary bath and this walk-in closet face one another across a hallway. Because the primary bedroom is so clearly distinguished from the rest of the house in plan, the two dressing areas form a metaphorical proscenium to the sanctum.
The house’s privacy-giving serpentine wall is visible from the kids’ bathroom, in which a custom vanity sits against a backdrop of Claybrook Confiserie and Concrete Collaborative Pacifica tiles.
The interior’s many swaths of pink are no accident—it is the husband’s favorite color. Bishop leaned into the hue with gusto for the powder room, using Sarah Von Dreele’s Brian XL wallpaper, a Twin 1.0 sconce, a slab of Quartzite, and other flamingo-like sources.
Architect Don Erickson placed a serpentine brick wall in front of the house’s north elevation to shield the sleeping wing’s bathing and dressing areas.
#tour #midcentury #modern #gem #preserved
Tour a Midcentury Modern Gem Preserved in Winnetka, Illinois
In the court of public opinion, acolytes of great architects are rarely treated as legends themselves. Take Chicago-area architect Don Erickson, who apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin from 1948 through 1951. Although the Chicago Tribune lauded Erickson’s work as “delicate, beautiful, and always original” after his death in 2006, local interior designer Jennie Bishop reports that most of his houses “are often purchased and torn down or so drastically changed that you can’t recognize them.”Bishop discovered an exception in 2021, when a friend in real estate suggested a meeting with clients who had just purchased the Winnetka, Illinois, residence that Erickson had designed for photographer Richard Boyer in 1966. “I went in blind and just gasped,” Bishop recalls of arriving at the impeccably preserved home, adding, “I was saying silent prayers that they would not rip things out or depart from Erickson’s vision.”Bishop sourced a circular sectional, designed by Adrian Pearsall, for the great room’s living area. She and one of the clients plan to replace its vintage upholstery when the homeowners’ two young sons are less rambunctious.
In the living area, a pair of lounge chairs upholstered in a Schumacher checkerboard pattern stand guard over an original fireplace.
Bishop’s invocations were answered quickly, when the husband and wife described their predilection for living in unique spaces. They also explained that they had promised the previous homeowner to steward this midcentury gem and envisioned a delicate renovation ahead. Bishop started the commission as cofounder of Chicago-based Studio Gild, and she completed the project under her recently launched AD PRO Directory firm Bishop Studio.The Winnetka residence features several hallmarks of a Frank Lloyd Wright–designed house. Applying Wright’s concept of “pressure and release” to the 6,000-square-foot interior, for example, Erickson created a skinny formal entry hall that he made even more narrow by arcing a raised fireplace hearth into the space. Just beyond the hearth, the newcomer overlooks a great room that is as expansive as the entry was constrained.“We didn’t want all the fixtures to look like they had been left there,” Bishop says of layering a contemporary lighting vocabulary into the well-preserved interior. For the kitchen island, she specified a Light Object 015 from Naama Hofman to shed strong uniform light on the work surface. The island’s Afternoon Plus stools are from DWR.
The kitchen’s perimeter cabinetry traces one of the orioles with which original architect Don Erickson had lined the west elevation of the house. The millwork was done by Abruzzo Kitchen & Bath.
The kitchen’s breakfast area, as seen from the hallway dividing the great room from the dining room: a Heritage Unicolor pendant from Taiwan-Lantern tops the custom table and banquette; leather sling dining chairs from CB2.
Other aspects of the house, such as its fan-patterned brick floors, historically evocative windows, and balletic ceilings, suggest that Erickson counted himself among the likes of A. Quincy Jones and Edward Durrell Stone—architects who were trying to reshape High Modernism for a popular American audience.Bishop determined that the Winnetka project required neither window replacement nor ceiling removal. At first, she planned to leave the enchanting brick floor untouched too. “We thought that its muted colors were original,” she says, “but we discovered a warmer palette underneath the kitchen appliances.” While Boyer and the homeowners who followed him had maintained the interior with almost religious devotion, their years of cleaning and coating the floors had unintentionally dulled their appearance. So began an exhaustive process of diamond sanding and resealing the surface, which Bishop admits caused moments of second-guessing: “It was painful to get to where we are, but now I’m super happy for the rusty and spicy colors that we achieved. We dramatically changed the house and honored it simultaneously.”A Maho sectional sofa by Wendelbo and a pair of vintage hammock chairs anchor the Florida room, which distinguishes itself from the great room by stepping down from the living area. The Florida room is oriented south to the patio.
Bishop completed the project’s other major intervention in a similar spirit. While redoing the primary and children’s bathrooms in the bedroom wing, the interior designer preserved the spaces’ organization into eight-by-eight-foot modules and specified surfaces featuring period-appropriate patterns and colors. To make the three-compartment primary bathroom more gracious, she converted a never-used sauna into a wet room that remains crowned in its original cedar.For the house’s furnishings, Bishop dotted the interior with antiques. For new and custom pieces, she leaned more toward complementing rather than aping the past. “We’re surrounded by so much wood in this house that we expressed ourselves with stone,” she cites as one example. Bishop also explains that the trio’s admiration for this palimpsest has only grown with time, so much so that the homeowners have granted her right of first refusal, should they someday decide to sell the house.The house is ostensibly L-shaped in plan, its east- and south-facing crook enfolding a generous patio area. Bishop and the homeowners are spreading the love by including the nest in a home tour hosted by Community House. The annual event raises funds for the local nonprofit and, this year, it promises to raise the profile of Erickson too.
Bishop reinvented the service entrance, located immediately adjacent to the three-bay garage, as a cozy entry wrapped in Cranes wallpaper by Milton & King.
“Nothing in this house is super precious,” Bishop says, noting that the homeowners enjoy entertaining at home. To wit, the designer created a double-pedestal dining room table topped in Jadore Quartzite “that could be danced upon.” It is overseen by a Rib Vault Light by Talbot & Yoon.
Within the great room, the Florida room’s glassed-in corner contains a vintage pedestal table surrounded by Crate & Barrel chairs upholstered in a House of Hackney bouclé. Bishop says she purchased and arranged the pieces on her own volition to help the then-unconvinced homeowners envision the vignette as a place for sipping wine or playing mah-jongg, “and they never left.”
The primary bedroom occupies a semidetached volume at the easternmost end of the house. Here, a walnut Feve Desk from Ferm Living overlooks a custom king-size bed finished in wine-colored Kirkby Design upholstery.
Like so many other original finishes in the house, the cedar ceilings in the primary bathroom suite were perfectly preserved. Bishop tacked a Mori pendant by RBW above the room’s middle module rather than tear into the cedar planks.
The primary bath is a suite of three eight-by-eight-foot modules linked by travertine flooring. Jupiter’s Axis Wall Sconces flank the double vanity.
The primary bath and this walk-in closet face one another across a hallway. Because the primary bedroom is so clearly distinguished from the rest of the house in plan, the two dressing areas form a metaphorical proscenium to the sanctum.
The house’s privacy-giving serpentine wall is visible from the kids’ bathroom, in which a custom vanity sits against a backdrop of Claybrook Confiserie and Concrete Collaborative Pacifica tiles.
The interior’s many swaths of pink are no accident—it is the husband’s favorite color. Bishop leaned into the hue with gusto for the powder room, using Sarah Von Dreele’s Brian XL wallpaper, a Twin 1.0 sconce, a slab of Quartzite, and other flamingo-like sources.
Architect Don Erickson placed a serpentine brick wall in front of the house’s north elevation to shield the sleeping wing’s bathing and dressing areas.
#tour #midcentury #modern #gem #preserved
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