Jaw-Dropping Views + Modern Elegance Define A Chicago Condo

Life takes on a whole new perspective from a Chicago skyscraper, as one couple discovered when they swapped their Bucktown single-family home for a condo inside the luxurious Streeterville high-rise One Bennett Park, designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern. The loss of quaint tree-lined streets and overall square footage proved a small price to pay for the glamorous Art Deco-inspired building and its breathtaking views.

To redefine their new life in the sky, the pair turned to designers Steve Somogyi and Filip Malyszko to customize spaces. Between the unit’s refined finishes and the couple’s lifetime collection of art and furniture, the designers had plenty with which to work. “The challenge was how to shift their tastes into a smaller space in a cohesive way that stands up against the view, the architecture and the scale of the rooms,” Malyszko explains.

The designers worked with builder Adam Gobcewicz on adding a few built-in elements, including more shelving in the home office and a new fireplace featuring a book-matched granite surround that slots into seamless cabinetry concealing a dry bar and wine storage. “But we always took inspiration from the existing millwork to keep everything consistent,” Somogyi notes.

These expressive strokes of color continue onto the floor, where custom artisanal rugs achieve painterly effects using lush wool and silk. In the dining room, undulating piles of midnight blue pool like water underneath the table. And in the living room, another expansive piece features swirling organic patterns of blue and gray pebbles. “We imagined them drifting, following the same traffic patterns you might take walking through the room,” Somogyi says.

How one circulates through the apartment was carefully considered, balancing the need for generous entertaining with “those day-to-day spaces they could enjoy with just the two of them,” Somogyi notes. The dining room embraces large festivities, anchored by a custom oversize table with integrated lazy Susan. Meanwhile, pairs of plush armchairs nestled by the windows, like the quiet sitting area in the primary bedroom, carve out more intimate tête-à-tête moments for the couple. Multiple seating clusters in turn break up the expansive living room, linked together by an elongated upholstered velvet bench that runs across the room’s north-facing windows overlooking the harbor. “You can perch there and admire the view while interacting with all the other seating areas within the room,” Malyszko explains.

Alongside these custom flourishes, the designers incorporated much of the couple’s existing collection of vintage midcentury modern furniture. But these familiar pieces feel newly animated with colorful upholstery, like their classic Eames lounge chair and ottoman now covered in boysenberry mohair. Newer additions maintain the couple’s affinity for classic streamlined designs but with characterful details reflecting their new environs, such as the cloud chandelier in the dining room, reflecting the fact that “you’re literally in the clouds,” Malyszko laughs.

There is something special in “seeing pieces of someone’s past brought into a new space,” muses Malyszko. “We love interpreting those elements with new pieces. It gets all intermixed into the story of who they are and the place where they now live.”