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CHICAGO HOME
A WORLD APART
HOW AN ODD BUT ALLURING LINCOLN PARK HOUSE BECAME THE PERFECT HOME FOR TWO DOGS AND THEIR GLOBETROTTING, ART-COLLECTING OWNERS.
By Deborah Wilk.
Fall 2006
When you have Weimaraners, your life is sort of all about your Weimaraners. So when Heather Heinlein, a decorative arts dealer, and her husband, Peter Mullett, decided it was time to move, that, too, was really all about their dogs. Tired of rushing home to walk the precious pups at night and worrying that they didn't have enough time in open spaces, the couple went on a search for that most elusive of all urban dwellings: a house with a big yard.
"We needed to find a place that could accommodate our dogs, Heinlein says. (They currently have two.) "It was either that or move to the suburbs." As luck would have it, the eagle-eyed dealer spotted a "For Sale" sign outside a late-19th-century classic worker's cottage on an afternoon drive through the West Lincoln Park neighborhood. A peek over its stone wall revealed a brick-paved courtyard the width of three city lots, where several big dogs roamed and rested unsupervised. "I took one look and thought, "This is it,"" Heinlein says.
The setting was perfect for canines and the owners who love them, but the house needed an overhaul. Originally a blue-collar residence, the building was later taken over by the Romanian Orthodox Church, which turned it into a house of worship. In the mid-sixties, the house became a home again after the church sold the building; the new owners left the ground-floor sanctuary and choir loft intact and built a kitchen, sitting room, and master bedroom in the basement. There were only one and a half bathrooms.
Heinlein and Mullett had no use for a sanctuary or choir left, per se, and set about creating a more secular arrangement of spaces. After making a few simple structural changes -including adding a skylight to the roof of what is now a sun porch - the couple hired Gary Beyerl, an architect with the Chicago firm Burns + Beyerl.
It turned out that Beyerl was familiar with the house, having worked on a row of town homes designed by Booth Hansen across the street. "The house was always an alluringly cool thing," he says, while noting "it was a little overwhelming to figure out how to make it a cohesive project."
It was clear the house needed an addition, but both architect and client were determined that the new structure not overpower the original house or the outdoor space. "We ended up building very tightly to the edge of the property to preserve the trees [in front]," Beyerl says.
"A lot of people ask me why we didn't build all the way to the street," Heinlein says, "but looking onto trees or a garden was really important to me.".
The design sequence was as unusual as everything else about the project. Plans for the exterior were drawn first, with the interior scheme left for later. Heinlein "wanted to see the volume of the space and come with interior ideas at that point," Beyerl says.
Once that time came, there were some interesting challenges. "Most of what we did was what the house dictated," Heinlein says. The finished house, all 3,625 square feet of it, offers a lot of willful play on height. "There is an idiosyncrasy of discovery in building a house like this," Beyerl says. "You have to accept that things won't be perfect."
The home has barnlike open spaces and no set path of movement. Rooms open into one another, creating a sense of floating from space to space and level to level. Aside from kitchen and sleeping chambers, the rooms defy specific purposes: the former sanctuary adjoins a similarly large room in the addition, forming a kind of living room; cozy lofts that overlook the larger rooms are glorious places to spy on party guests with a suspended daybed and a 360-degree city view, the perfect place to catch a catnap or work on one's laptop uninterrupted by anything save for a passing cloud.
The unique, dreamy configuration is utterly unlike the sleek, sever chic of modernism or the mannered propriety of traditional homes, yet it marries classic and contemporary styles seamlessly. The home's ethereal architecture is grounded by decor that draws on the couple's love of nature and global cultures - pieces from Africa and Asia coexist beautifully with objects from Italy, Mexico, and the American West. As the owner of Arms Akimbo, a now-defunct gallery of African artifacts in River North, Heinlein had a tremendous palette from which to choose.
"We traveled for years before we settled in the house," she says. "It was really a matter of taking the objects we had collected and finding space for them." Beyerl created architectural niches to showcase exotic objects and textiles. Meanwhile, the basic furniture came from sales at Mart showrooms.
After finishing the addition, the couple took one last trip - to Bali - to buy pieces specifically for the house. The most prized of these is an Indonesian bed that holds court in the master bedroom.
Of course, dog beds and accessories are strategically placed throughout the house. "A lot os the colors of the surfaces and textiles were chosen with the dogs in mind," Heinlein says. "They are everywhere. People always ask if I want them to remove their shoes when they visit, but please! Dogs live here."
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Resources: Architect: Gary Beyerl, AIA, Burns + Beyerl Architects, Chicago, IL; 312.663.0222; bbaworld.com. Contractor: Michael J. Mariottini, Itasca, 630.773.1616. Bathroom: tub, sinks, and fixtures, Waterware, 1829 S. State St., 312.225.4549; wall mirrors, Restoration Hardware; mirror on vanity, Anthrropologie, photograph over tub, Catherine Edelman Gallery, 300 W. Superior St., 312.266.2350; bath towels and tumbler, Waterworks, 136 Merchandise Mart. 312.572.1490. Bedroom: pillows, Ralph Lauren; coverlet, Bedside Manor, 2056 N Halsted st.; photographs, Edelman Gallery. Living Room: SDH Salon Collection throw, Bedside Manor.
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