Traditional Home
April 2003
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by Eliot Nusbaum
photography by Peter Walters
produced by Hilary Rose

Perfect Fit
John Lease found that gutting his 1940s penthouse was the best way to get the maximum benefit from the available space.

John Lease started with a fairly ambitious plan for his Chicago penthouse: “M original concept was to redo the kitchen update the baths, add a fireplace, and enlarge the roof deck,” he says. But by the end of the first day of renovation, he had abandoned that plan. At the urging of his friend, architect Steve Kadlec, John gutted the place. “With all I wanted to do, it just seemed like it would be easier to rip things out and start over. Then it got to be, ‘Well, if we’re going to rip things out, we might as well improve the flow of the apartment ’. And then it turned into a total gut job.” In less than a week, John had an empty shell to work with.

That shell was a modest 2,100 square feet wityh another 1,100 square feet of decks. Built in the 1940s atop a 1920s apartment building on North Lake Shore Drive, it lacked the charm and the detailing of the original apartments, and years of “work” on the place only made things worse. In short, there really wasn’t all that much to save. “By gutting it,” explains John, “I was able to place the lights and outlets where I wanted them, raise the ceilings, and add moldings. It was so much easier to start with a blank space.”

Working with Kadlec, John drew up plans that basically restored the apartment to its original configuration, which had been significantly altered by previous owners. The main goal was to improve the visual and physical flow of the apartment and to increase access to the decks. However, John also took the opportunity to tailor the rooms to suit his specific needs. For example, he changed one small bedroom-bathroom suite into a dining room and made a second bedroom into a study that also serves as a guest room. A small office off the living room was turned into a wine cellar.

Another benefit of gutting the space was the creation of more headroom, the result of tearing out two old ceilings-a dropped drywall ceiling and an old plaster version-and clearing the way for new 9-foot 7-inch ceilings throughout. For architectural interest, he chose stock molding for the walls, although he had to get custom-made French doors to fit the openings in the brick façade.

The new living room is a long space, so John laid it out in two areas. One end has seating with a sofa, chairs, and a table. The other end has the piano and a chaise, where one or two people can sit by the fire. This arrangement works well for the small groups he typically entertains, but he also likes to use the space himself. There’s great light, and he loves to play the piano there.

An unusual feature of the living room-or, more accurately, the area immediately off the living room-is the wine cellar to the right of the fireplace. The small room is accessed through a door with a glass insert that allows guests to peer into the dark space to see the wine bottles reflecting light like faceted jewels. Bookshelves are built over the top and down the right side of the doorway. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases fill the niche to the left of the fireplace and provide visual balance.

In contrast to the large, yellow-painted living room, the dining room is an intimate green-and-gold toned space. “It’s a nice size,” says John of the room that had been a bedroom in the original design of the apartment. “The table fills it up, which makes it nice and cozy. When the lights are low and the sconces are on at night, it’s really a great room.” The most dramatic feature is the tall, hand-carved limestone fireplace John commissioned. To provide architectural interest without taking up space in the dining room, he added a chair rail and moldings.

John refers to the other former bedroom as his “combination” room. “I didn’t want to have a room set aside for guests that I could never use,” he says. So it is furnished to serve as his study-John’s a doctor-and television room, as well as a guest room. Actually, with its commanding view of the John Hancock building, it makes a good spot for entertaining, especially at night, when the city lights provide a sparkling show.

In a way, John had multiple purposes in mind for tge guest bath as well. Because the master bath has only an open shower, he designed the guest bath with a long, deep soaking tub set against a hand-painted mural of Greek ruins and columns. This fills the void left by the tubless master bath and services the “combination” of the room whenever he has an overnight guest.

The kitchen is a little gem, with the emphasis on little. A model of efficienty, the small room houses everything John needs without sacrificing style. Working first with kitchen designer Cheryl Hamilton-Gray and then with Doug Durbin after Hamilton-Gray moved to the West Coast, John thought through every detail in the kitchen. “My previous kitchen (published in Traditional Home in July 2001) had two ovens, but this is a smaller space, and I realized I just wanted one oven in order ot leave room for other things. Likewise, I didn’t want to take up space with a second sink just to pile dirty dishes in, so I did one big deep sink instead. Every drawer and cabinet in this tiny kitchen is filed, and it has just what I need. It’s enough for me.”

Another space-saving idea is hanging pots and pans on the wall. Open shelving, and floating cabinets help keep the room from feeling too closed-in. The pantry also takes some of the pressure off the kitchen: It houses the refrigerator and freezer drawers and is fitted with deep storage cupboards. The kitchen illustrates how thoughtful design can overcome space limitations, a lesson that shows up throughout the apartment, thanks in part to John’s decision to reorganize the entire space.
Discussing the renovation of his apartment, John says, “The whole project was about working the interior and the exteriors together. It’s all about the flow. Deciding to gut the place was a huge step, and everything evolved from it. The apartment flows much better, thanks to Steve’s suggestions. And I took it from there.