Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY CYNTHIA LYNN CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: A wine-colored Knoll womb chair and ottoman plus an artwork from photographer Robert Polidori's Versailles series anchor the Della Valles' family room; Justyna and two-year-old son Dominic relax in the living room, whose highlights include Hannah Vaughan's Post Industrial Reservoir floor lamp from Pavillion Antiques and 20th C; the kitchen boasts walnut Taburet stools from Ion Design, Flos Aim multipoint lighting, and a Dornbract Tara Ultra faucet. Yet the house was too good to pass up in every other respect, so they made an offer. But the devel- oper wouldn't grant their request to stop work and let them finish the home with their own team. His only concession was to alter the layout of the master suite, which was a rabbit's warren of tiny spaces thanks to its convoluted master bathroom and separate his-and-her closets. The Della Valles hired Chicago interior design firm Project to revamp the master suite into a far more streamlined space immedi- ately, and then help them realize their vision throughout the rest of the house after they closed. Once they had free reign, "off came baseboards, molding, hardware and more to showcase the home's graceful bones," explains Project senior interior designer Lauren Warnock. "We replaced the fixtures, faucets, pulls, millwork and countertops in the bathrooms; the hardware in the kitchen; and the lighting in every room with more modern options." But their most transformative upgrade was to rework the home's traditional staircase. Conventional oak handrails, balustrades, and stringers were replaced with sleek versions hand wrought in sumptu- ous blackened steel. "It totally changed the nature of the entire house," Warnock maintains. Once the structural changes were complete, Warnock helped the couple decorate the home to maximize its newly perfected architectural merits and significant art. Gossamer drapes and opulent area rugs anchor every room, and the iconic modern furnishings they already owned were augmented with key contemporary pieces of similar stature, such as B&B Italia's Terminal 1 chaise and Modern Industries' live-edge dining table. Today, the home's thoroughly modern aesthetic belies its-all-too- traditional roots—which is exactly how the Della Valles like it. . 88 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM SPACE HAUTE PROPERT Y