Kristen Ekeland | Jan 2025

Reinvigorating A Vintage Beauty For A Chicago Family

By Kelly Vencill Sanchez
Photography by Ryan McDonald

It was a chilly January day on the North Shore when a young couple toured a 1914 home that at first glance looked about as dreary as the weather. The wife, who was three weeks away from having her second child, took in the brown stucco exterior and wasn’t feeling optimistic. But the moment she and her husband stepped into spacious rooms filled with natural light, they knew their search had ended. “I wasn’t really expecting to like it,” she recalls, “but I had a very visceral, emotional reaction to it.”