A 1920s English Cotswold-Style Dwelling in Hinsdale

Details

Transitional White Foyer

The original wood front door of this Hinsdale home was given a custom lacquered coating fabricated by Tim Thompson Designs. The Commute Design chandelier and vintage Jayson Home rug create eclectic harmony.

English Cotswold-Style Front Elevation

The home's exterior draws from the English Cotswold style with exposed beams and intricate stonework.

Transitional White Great Room

The great room’s custom A. Rudin sofa mixes with a coffee table in a Keleen Leathers textile.

White Transitional Great Room Alcove

A playful stool resides in an alcove in the great room.

Transtional White Dining Room with Black-Stained Ceiling

The interiors offer light and dark contrasts. For the dining room, designers Cheryl Sheehan and Karen Hipskind paired a dark handmade table with custom chairs in white Zinc fabric from Romo. Built-in shelves featuring gold leaf over burlap insets create natural light.

Transitional White Kitchen with Wood Paneled Wall

Walls were removed during the kitchen renovation to exude a more open feel. The space, designed by Mick De Giulio and Kathy Manzella of de Giulio Kitchen Design, includes custom cabinetry. Terzani pendants selected by Olive + Duke Interior Design create a focal point; the stools are from Bernhardt Design.

Transitional White Family Room

A former sunporch was converted into a family room, which the owners call their keeping room. A stone wall, previously part of the home’s exterior, now acts as an architectural feature on the inside and contrasts with a modern sofa and chairs. Tables are from Knoll, and the Ironies open-weave chair is from Holly Hunt.

Transitional Sculptural Stucco Stairway

Leading up to the third-floor bedrooms, a sculptural stucco stairway—a feature conceived by the designers—envelops a reclaimed wood post.

Transitional White Great Room Desk

Sliding wood doors by Tim Thompson Designs between the cathedral and great rooms allow for one cohesive living space. In the great room, an antique chair featuring a Lee Jofa fabric pulls up to a concrete table from Jayson Home layered with a metal-and-glass Parsons table.

Transitional White Sitting Room with Vaulted Ceiling

In a space the homeowners regard as the cathedral room—for its vaulted ceiling beams—a built-in zinc desk was designed by Olive + Duke. Chairs from A. Rudin surround a table from Michael Dawkins Home, while photographs by Tom Mapp from Lovell & Whyte in Lakeside, Michigan, add color.

Neutral Transitional Backyard Patio

Landscape architect Tony LoBello fashioned the patio with stone pavers in a spiderweb pattern—paying homage to original architect R. Harold Zook’s trademark motif. A new fire pit is paired with the homeowners’ existing loveseats and chairs.

Transitional Stained-Glass Window

The restoration brought the home’s existing web-patterned stained-glass window back to its original glory. Architect Michael J. Abraham and builder Mark Hickman gave the exterior stone façade and English Cotswold-style timber window frames a crisp facelift.

Transitional White Master Bedroom

To counterbalance the architecture in the master bedroom, a circular chandelier by Christopher Boots plays off the angular look of the ceiling beams. A custom bed with a headboard wrapped in a Holly Hunt Great Plains fabric coordinates with pillows by Sivaana from Bedside Manor.

Transitional White Master Bath Vanity

The master bath’s Roeckers cabinetry and flooring from The Tile Gallery contrast with countertops from Marble & Granite Supply of Illinois. A Wetstyle tub takes center stage.

As a realtor in Hinsdale, homeowner Erin McLaughlin had long been familiar with architect R. Harold Zook, who designed several Chicago-area homes from the 1920s through the ’40s, most often drawing from the English Cotswold style with exposed beams and intricate stonework. So, when a 1927 Zook home became available, she and her husband, Tim, jumped at the chance to own it. “We always knew the house could be a jewel box; it just needed a little bit of love,” Erin recalls. “I wanted something special in each room to complement the architecture, and for each space to be earthy, elegant, beautiful, and approachable. Also, my family needed to be able to utilize every space.”

So, the McLaughlin’s, who have six children, turned to architect Michael J. Abraham to update the home—including removing walls in the kitchen for more openness and light and transforming a former sunporch into a new family room. Abraham also felt that making the home’s interior a modern juxtaposition to the historic exterior style would have earned Zook’s approval. “The house is one of his all-time classics,” Abraham explains. “For us, it was fun to take apart a historic piece of architecture and see how it was originally put together—to really understand the scale and proportions of it.” With such great bones, Abraham says, a heavy-handed period restoration wasn’t necessary. “If Harold was around today, he wouldn’t have just redone the home as a period piece; he would have taken it to another level.”

The interiors are largely defined by the home’s architectural details, such as the Douglas-fir ceiling beams and a wall of stone that was previously situated on the exterior and now resides in the family room. “All of this work was completed with hand tools back in the day,” says builder Mark Hickman. “The details were done so perfectly that we decided to utilize the materials that were available back then.” An example of this is the 1 1/2-inch rift-sawn white-oak flooring stained in a chocolate tone that he says gives the house a more contemporary look.

At the same time, designers Cheryl Sheehan and Karen Hipskind set out to introduce contrasting elements into the interiors that hold their own against the Cotswold-style architecture. For example, 20th-century pieces, such as Marcel Breuer’s Laccio nesting tables in the family room, or the keeping room as the owners refer to it, and an Arco floor lamp in the great room, commingle with 21st-century finds such as Foscarini’s Caboche floor lamps, also in the great room. Striking chandeliers were placed throughout, such as a bold hand-gilt plaster piece over the entry door and a pair of Terzani pendants that hang above the kitchen island. “It was like this beautiful dance,” Sheehan says of balancing old and new throughout the house. Adds Hipskind: “The home is like this comfortable oasis; it’s organic, yet there’s an elegant quality to the details. And when the lights are on at night the whole house glows.”

New details also help to modernize the existing architecture. The original chevron-patterned entry door, for instance, was plated on the inside with stainless nickel, while in the cathedral room— named for its beamed vaulted ceiling—a razor-thin zinc table was built into the window wall. To establish the idea of strong purposeful interior spaces worthy of the architectural features, the designers outfitted the rooms with disparate materials. In the entry, a white tufted bench from Jayson Home, placed under the owners’ vintage mirror, introduces the home’s soft palette and casual-living ambience; the great room’s vast space was devised for large groups with a pit-style sofa featuring a neutral fabric; and in the dining room, an absence of a chandelier was purposefully done, with can lights creating a subtle layered design. A circular theme plays off the home’s angular lines, such as a pair of nesting tables in the entry, stools in the kitchen, and a light fixture in the master bedroom, which was fashioned as a relaxing retreat.

Outside, landscape architect Tony LoBello used a stained-glass window with a spiderweb pattern—one of Zook’s trademarks—as inspiration for a web motif in the stone pavers of the new outdoor patio. Because the house has no backyard, LoBello crafted a mix of colorful screening plants and trees. “We used Annabelle hydrangeas, which bloom almost all summer, and blue beech—a small ornamental tree that’s very densely twigged and great for privacy—but in a red fall color,” LoBello says.

With the renovation now complete, “the house really reflects our family’s personality,” Erin says. “The home just flows so well. My husband and I saw the potential, but the team made it something beautiful and comfortable.”