EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

“It was a match made in heaven,” says Lee Thinnes, owner and principal designer of Lee’s Antiques & Interiors LLC. “My client had purchased a very large home, because her mother was moving in, along with her extensive collection of art and antiques. I’ve been an antique dealer for 18 years, specializing in late 19th through mid-20th-century European and American furniture, fine art, and lighting. So, I was able to use that knowledge to incorporate all these pieces into the home in a really soulful way,” explains Thinnes.

Her client’s home is a large, 1990s property executed in a French Country style. Working with architect Jeff Heaney and Callahan & Peters Inc.’s production manager Dave Peters, the homeowner took the house down to the studs to create a cleaner, more contemporary envelope. Thinnes worked with Michelle Chircop, a Designer/Project Coordinator at Callahan & Peters, to finetune the interior architecture, then set about fashioning spaces in which the client’s furnishings would really shine. “We designed the home as a backdrop to highlight these pieces so they would appear more modern,” says Thinnes, who got an early grounding in architecture and design while working summers for her mother who managed an architectural firm. “We opened up headers in doorways to make rooms feel more spacious. We used white walls everywhere and a raised paneling in a square motif in the foyer and billiard room that feels more today.”

Aside from a few sconces, everything in the house came from the client’s existing inventory. “There were pieces some people would have let go,” admits Thinnes, “but we used every piece that she and her mother owned, merging two entire households into one home.” The billiard room sports a vibrant green Chesterfield that once sat in the mother’s family room. “The sconces in that room,” notes Thinnes, “are repurposed pendants that hung in a restaurant my client’s grandfather had in the city.”

Embracing family and heritage were key to Thinnes’ approach. So too was creating a conversation between old and new. In the double-height foyer, Thinnes paired 1970s stools updated in cream wool bouclé with a 1920s French commode and a vintage Venetian mirror. The living room is set with Louis XV armchairs upholstered in yellow silk, a sapphire blue Ligne Roset sofa, and a vintage glass coffee table. The wallpaper—an overscale rendering of almond blossoms by Vincent Van Gogh—is a bold but sympathetic gesture in this eclectically outfitted room.

“Because the family loves to entertain and the client’s mother had an extensive Queen Anne dining set, we made the existing living room into a dining room that seats 20,” shares Thinnes. In the kitchen—executed with an assist from Starved Rock Wood Products of Glenview—she created a contemporary space that tips a toque to French Country. Anchored by a 13-foot walnut island capped with rust-veined Cristallo Quartzite, it generates a special warmth thanks to handsome ceiling beams, walnut-stained oak floors in a chevron pattern, and a BlueStar range and stove hood in a custom copper finish.

Art graces almost every room. A Renoir-like Edna Hibel lithograph hangs in one bathroom, a Roy Lichtenstein print in another. Chandeliers sparkle throughout. An antique French brass and crystal piece is suspended over a four-poster bed in the primary bedroom. An early 20th-century fixture illuminates a primary bathroom. Stylish finishes and fabrics, such as Calacatta Gold and Borghini marble flooring and the silvery mohair on a Louis XV bench, play a critical role in supporting the pervasive sophistication. An embarrassment of riches, the home—thanks to Thinnes’ eye for scale and proportion, color and material, and her intimate knowledge of art and antiques—is stunning, but not overwhelming. And most importantly, keenly expressive of the lives lived here.

For more information, visit leesantiques.net.