Designer Rx: Mix heritage, love of music
Collaborative result incorporates Indian culture, family art
Getting to know her patients is crucial for Dr. Avanti Kumar-Singh, a physician who practices Ayurveda, a traditional healing system from India that dates back thousands of years. So perhaps it’s not too surprising that she was so appreciative of interior designer Jen Talbot’s diagnostic approach to the design of the three-level townhome in Chicago’s Lakeshore East neighborhood that Kumar-Singh shares with her husband, Kanwar Singh, 50, an asset manager, and their two teenage daughters, Zara, 19, and Isha, 16.
“Jen spent a lot of time in our home looking at our things and asking us questions about them,” says Kumar-Singh, 46. “She had a very clear sense of what we liked.”
Eager to return to the city after raising their daughters in Oak Brook, the couple found the perfect dwelling in the form of the three-bedroom, 3½bath abode within walking distance of the lake, shopping, dining and parks. Although the home’s aesthetic was unremarkable, its layout, soaring living room ceilings and separate loft area spoke to them.
It didn’t take long for Talbot to prescribe the right vibe for her new clients.
“They are a wonderful family of Indian descent, who wanted to incorporate their culture and love of music,” the designer explains, comparing herself to a private detective. “I go into a space and see what I can draw from. They had some interesting pieces to use as a jumping-off point.”
In the lofted great room, white walls create a gallerylike background on which to display those pieces, which include many paintings by Kumar-Singh’s mother, Nilima Kumar.
“When my mom came here, she didn’t know anybody and hardly spoke English, so she passed the time painting and drawing,” Kumar-Singh says. “The dining table was always covered with her canvases, paints and charcoals.”
The bright and spacious living area opens to the kitchen, even more so now that Talbot eliminated the half-walls with glass along the top that formerly obstructed the flow between the spaces.
“We touched almost everything,” Talbot says, noting that she also gutted all four bathrooms, and added built-in cabinetry and decorative moldings in strategic locations throughout the spacious town home.
Although the owners decided to keep the existing kitchen cabinets, Talbot incorporated a new Calacatta gold marble backsplash and matching countertops, including a far more contemporary waterfall style for the island, which is illuminated by a pair of sculptural glass fixtures.
In the adjacent dining area, Talbot worked in a square table surrounded by tufted upholstered dining chairs. A spherical metal and glass chandelier makes a statement while built-in cabinetry creates a handsome display for glassware and also includes concealed storage.
“Built-ins add warmth and make the space feel more permanent, like it has some history,” Talbot explains.
The open space is ideal for the family’s many soirees, which include client dinners, large family affairs and more intimate evenings when the parents and their daughters play the baby grand piano and sing, or head upstairs to the library — a clubby space in the loft overlooking the living room where they have enjoyed many a jam session.
“Our entire family loves to read and there’s a lot of music, so we really wanted a space with a library feel,” Kumar-Singh explains.
Aware that the library area received so much light from tall windows in the great room below, Talbot painted the walls in a deep gray hue, and designed floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves with brass library lights. There are nods to the family’s heritage throughout, such as a prayer cabinet with an upholstered stool covered in a hand-embroidered cloth that Kumar-Singh bought in India. In the corner, vintage copper bells dangle from the ceiling, suspended with twine.
“That’s one of our favorite things,” Kumar-Singh says.
Beyond the bells, Talbot, who got her start as an installation designer for clients like the Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel — there, using 40,000 golf pencils, she created a 12by-14-foot mural installation of a taxi that makes a grand statement in the lobby — had many other artful ideas.
“I think of spaces a little differently,” Talbot says. Take the whimsical installation she created for the older daughter’s bedroom — a branch suspended with gold-wrapped ostrich feathers and lights, a cool twist on something that Zara saw at her cousin’s house in India.
“She’s a really wonderful kid, and I wanted to make it very magical for her,” Talbot says of Zara. “It’s bittersweet when a project like this ends.”
Indeed, there are good feelings all around.
“This was a very collaborative process, and a lot of fun,” Kumar-Singh says. “Every room is pretty special.”