It started with the pillows. It always starts with the pillows.
On her way to a prospective client’s house for a small project that did not justify the long drive from her Chicago office, Jasmin Reese recounts bemusedly that she thought, Why am I going to this job? “But the house looked intriguing. I had no idea who they were.”
Turns out Jimmy Chamberlin, drummer for alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, and his wife, Lori Chamberlin, were mulling over a refresh of their 10,000-square-foot manse in Riverwoods, Illinois, a heavily wooded community about 30 miles from Chicago. The two-story limestone home possesses over 300 windows and a serpentine staircase with iron railings. Ceilings soar up to 23 feet in the double-height living room, where a floor-to-ceiling view of the outdoors makes a dramatic statement.
However, the blanket of beige that besieged every wall did not. Nor did the cherrywood cabinets, basic granite countertops and lackluster light fixtures. “It was a typical suburban house,” Jimmy describes.
The wife discovered interior designer Reese while perusing Instagram. Initially interested in only swapping out pillows, the job snowballed into painting kitchen cabinets, introducing wallpaper, installing chandeliers and sourcing furnishings. “They hired us for pillows, and I was a little meek about trying to get the rest of the room,” Reese, principal of Jasmin Reese Interiors, admits. “We ended up getting to do the house.”
So how do you design for a rock star known as one of the greatest drummers of all time, his wife and two teenage children? Reese presented to the couple acclaimed artist Hunt Slonem’s book When Art Meets Design, which offers a glimpse of the painter’s fantastically decorated homes. The book is besotted with bold color, wild patterns and eclectic design. “I told the clients the project would have a vibe similar to that,” Reese states. “They have the scale to pull it off. They said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
Rooms are saturated with coats of paint so intense that they glow from the street, and patterns from classic to whimsical pop up on ceilings, walls and window treatments. To this audacious approach, Reese mixed in vintage and modern furnishings that play to the scale of the architecture.
Taking inspiration from red-painted walls featured in the book, the trio considered similar hues for the dining room. Jimmy, however, “slanted it more pink,” according to Lori. Reese took her cue and amplified the proposed color’s intensity by suggesting Benjamin Moore’s Pink Corsage. “Tensions were high,” Reese describes of the first of many bold decisions. “It was really expensive, and it took lots of coats of paint. I held my breath when I walked in.
She added porter chairs to the existing table and wallpapered the ceiling in Metallic Gold CORK by Thibaut. Underneath, she laid a rug “so bright that it hurts your eyeballs,” and on the walls, created a salon-style arrangement using the homeowners’ art and newly acquired works.
The adjacent living room commands as much attention. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the woods, and walls are treated to a teal color that helps blend the room into the landscape. “We have no drapes, and when people walk by, they see the crazy green,” Lori said. A large limestone fireplace offered an opportunity to do something cool. Reese topped it with a panel of scenic wallpaper from Osborne & Little (by John Derian) and accented it with a puppet show from the 1800s that the couple sourced through an auction house. “We bought it not knowing where we were going to put it,” Jimmy admits. “Somehow it ended up on top of our mantle.”
Another shopping expedition turned up a pair of Victorian daybeds that the interior designer installed in the sitting room, a previously little-used room. Aged in green with bronze accents, “they’re super creepy,” Jimmy notes. They’ve been upgraded with cushions and chunky tassels. It has become the couple’s and their five cats’ go-to spot. “It’s my favorite place to sit and read or just do nothing,” Jimmy admits. In those quiet moments, he can always gaze at the ceiling papered in a metallic damask from Osborne & Little and the chandelier constructed of recycled wine bottles from Currey & Co.
A nearby office lures them in with a Fornasetti for Cole & Son wallpaper and a desk by Noir. In a nod to Jimmy’s profession, black-and-white photographs of rock greats grace one wall.
A wallcovering of flora and fauna by Timorous Beasties on the staircase suggests that more eclectic design can be found on the upper level where there are four bedrooms and bathrooms. Another exuberant wallcovering by the UK brand leads into the primary bedroom, a sobering charcoal accented with a gold gilt mirror and plaster medallions.
Jimmy gives props to Reese for figuring out their design preferences and integrating the house with their lifestyle. “Every room has a different vibe,” he notes. “She looked at each room as its own project, although the entire design of the house is holistic.”
Lori agrees, applauding the interior designer’s intrepidness. “I chose her because she was the only person in Chicago who wasn’t afraid of color. I think she had fun with us.”
Photography by Michael Alan Kaskel.
Like what you see? Get it first with a subscription to aspire design and home magazine.