ARCHITECTURE AFICIONADO

Long Island native Jenny Schnabl Brewster shares a few of her favorite things about her life as a wife, mother, and taste maker in Lake Forest.

To call Jenny Schnabl Brewster modest is an understatement. She’d rather talk about famous North Shore architects than talk about herself—especially now that she lives in a Jerome Cerny (a protégé of David Adler) home in east Lake Forest. “I live right around the corner from Adler’s Edison Dick House, Adler’s Reed House, and [Harrie T.] Lindeberg’s Dexter Cumming House, so that’s a pretty powerful trio to choose from,” she said when asked to name her favorite North Shore architectural landmark. “Like, a dog walking route of dreams, for sure.” What we do know is that this art historian and interior designer is the mother of three girls who met husband Leland Brewster when the two were undergraduates at Williams College. They were both on the row team (he a rower and she a coxswain) and apparently soon became inseparable. He proposed on a Nantucket beach in 2012, they were married at the University Club in Chicago in 2014, and ultimately found their way to Lake Forest. Today Jenny, who studied at Boston Architectural College and worked for designers in Boston’s Beacon Hill (Hilary House Interiors) and here in Chicago (Branca and Jenny Brown), puts those decorating skills to use in her own historic home. The former design blogger, architecture aficionado, and self-described “dork,” also devotes much of her time to raising her three daughters (ages 8, 6, and 2) and sailing—now on a different coast. Here are a few of her favorite things about her adopted hometown:

Favorite architect? Around here? Residential? David Adler! I feel like it’s an obvious answer but he’s the King as far as I’m concerned. The architect of our house worked for Adler, so I’m one degree removed … like that “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game. Design aesthetic you love? Traditional and welcoming. You can be traditional while being a little cheeky, and having some joie de vivre, it doesn’t have to be so stuffy. Back in the day, I had a blog called The Foo Dog Ate My Homework which I think actually sums up my point of view pretty well. Object in your home you treasure most? We have a huge, framed photo in the living room of a doorway in Herculaneum (it’s like a smaller Pompeii—ruined by the same eruption of Vesuvius, just small and much less visited) that my husband took, when my family took him to Italy in 2011. Favorite North Shore shop for finding surprise gems? Heritage Trail Marketplace in Northfield is always great, and I love Trading Treasures right in Lake Bluff. Favorite interior design or architecture Instagrammer? My college buddy Rob runs @notenoughhangers. He’s a realtor in New York and does the most incredible deep dives on historic homes and apartments and floorplans in New York, particularly on the East Side. Absolutely fascinating. Best place to sail on the North Shore? Lake Forest Sailing is such an amazing resource, either for experienced people who want to get out or new people just wanting to learn. It’s remarkable that we all have access to this just through the town.

Best-kept secret on the North Shore is? Is it weird to say the North Shore itself? As someone from the northeast, I’m truly always out there proselytizing, trying to get my Boston and New York friends to move out here. Favorite local place to shop? Shocker … I’m a needle pointer, so the Canvasback in Northfield and The Forest Needle in Lake Forest. Third Coast Stitches downtown, too if I can swing by. What’s your girls’ favorite home-cooked meal? This sounds completely deranged, but Linguine with Clams. We told them a year ago that “baby otters love clams” and they subsequently downed several dozen. My husband has to call Heinen’s to special order literally 100 Littleneck Clams a few days before we make it and then I roll up to the seafood counter to pick it up and they’re like “ah, that weird clam lady is here.”

TV show you can’t stop binging? Widow’s Bay. I haven’t stopped yapping about it for two months. I’m insufferable. It’s so good. Dream vacation? I’ve been dying to go Sicily and see the Norman cathedrals. Didn’t I mention earlier I was a dork? What’s next on your bucket list? I’m a huge medieval history person, and I’ve wanted to see the Bayeaux Tapestry my whole life, so I’m finally dragging my whole family to see it in London over spring break. It’s on loan to the British Museum from the museum in northern France where it usually lives (in Bayeaux) for the 1,000th birthday of William the Conqueror. I hope my girls think it’s cool and aren’t just like “eww Mom’s crying in the British Museum, can we just go to the Jellycat store?”