Open House: Beth’s Lincoln Square Memory

When Beth and I met during one of my Svenska Mobler lunch sojourns, she surprised me by engaging in a conversation about the nature of good design and the question of what’s lost when iconic designs become ubiquitous. Sensing that her place might turn out to be as interesting and smart as she was, I timidly asked her if she’d be open to a Strange Closets house tour. Pleasing me greatly, she said yes and even surprised me with a lovely lunch.

Beth, who shares the flat with her housemate, Hilary, has made a number of interesting interior design choices, which offer tantalizing snippets of information about her life and past. There’s a theory that, like a holograph, which holds the entire image in every pixel, a grain of sand contains the entire universe.

In actuality, that theory applies best to people. While Beth’s no longer goth or rock-a-billy or an active cog in the political machine, her apartment and the objects she collects reveal that they’re all still there inside (alongside) her current incarnation as a design and style maven.

Beth’s pied a terre, even absent her possessions, is a fantastic Chicago, 2 bedroom apartment. The space has a built-in dining room buffet, a fireplace, original light fixtures and other features that would go for a mint in a salvage yard. Beth’s decor, rich and textured but minimalist at the same time, is a beautiful contradiction which accentuates the unit’s best qualities and is one of the very finest examples of the style I’ve dubbed Decoratus Absurdum (click here to read my revolutionary and extremely insightful article on the subject).

Trend or not, I love the antlers; seeing them interpreted not with ironic spin, but just displayed authentically made me appreciate them in a new way. I was especially impressed with the way she mixed the taxidermy, leather rhino footstool and the more “cheeky” elements with beautiful art and Swedish furniture and not only made it work but made it work so elegantly. I’ve been there twice now, and both times, I leave envious and ready to derive until my head explodes (not that duplicating somebody’s space ever really works).

Beth’s moving out this weekend, and I have very mixed feelings. Although I’m already nostalgiac for “that cool place in Lincoln Square,” I’m excited at the prospect of seeing her decorate a new space; maybe my charms will work again, and we’ll all be invited to her Open House.