The North Shore Weekend, March 11th, 2023

- Steve Martin

Chad Kramer of Glencoe was named CEO of luxury shoe brand Del Toro last October. He’s using his

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John Conatser FOUNDER & PUBLISHER

ADVERTISING @NSWEEKEND.COM

Jennifer Sturgeon

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Dustin O'Regan, Kemmie Ryan, Sherry Thomas, Megan Weisberg

FASHION EDITOR

Theresa DeMaria

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Mitch Hurst, Bill McLean, Rex Reed

DESIGN

Linda Lewis PRODUCTION MANAGER/GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Chris Geimer ADVERTISING COORDINATOR/GRAPHIC DESIGNER

PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART

Tom Bachtell, Barry Blitt

ILLUSTRATION

Cheyanne Lencioni ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

10 seeing green Hartley Botanic Greenhouses and Glasshouses bring the outside in

11 in sync(hro)

North Shore residents compete at the U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships

LIFESTYLE & ARTS

14 emily

This melodramatic biopic about author Emily Bronte misses the mark

15 #hashtag

Mental health advocate Amy Oberholtzer aims to give parents a soft landing

16 material pursuits

Rod Stewart's famous Lamborghini, caviar service, and florals by Charlotte Moss round out this weekend's "must have" list

16 social life

Antiques + Modernism Show returns to Winnetka's Community House

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

18 sunday breakfast

The Jewish United Fund has a major asset in its new general campaign chair, Highland Park entrepreneur Carey Cooper

BY MITCH HURST THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

Last May, Chad Kramer was at a dinner at Miramar in Highwood and a friend asked if he’d ever heard of the luxury shoe brand, Del Toro. A self-admitted fashion nerd, Kramer said he had been an early follower of the brand on Instagram but was unsure of what had happened to it.

Fast forward to October, and Kramer was on day one of his tenure as Del Toro’s CEO. A Venn diagram would be useful in illustrating how Kramer’s journey came about, but it all starts with a love of fashion.

“My whole life I’ve been very interested in fashion. My family owned an optical business in Glenview, so I’ve grown up in retail. I’ve loved eyewear my whole life and that led to fashion,” Kramer says. “My mom jokes around that she didn’t know what to do with me as a kid so she would just take me shopping with her. She says I grew up in malls.”

Kramer was raised in Long Grove and attended Stevenson High School before enrolling at the University of Illinois. After graduation he landed a job in asset management with JP Morgan, eventually moving to New York. Though he found success in the finance world, his interest in fashion never waned.

“When I moved to New York City I always had this hidden itch that I really didn’t talk to anybody about—that I was really interested in fashion and one day starting my own brand,” he says. “After living in New York for three years, I opened up to my fiancé at the time, Heather, who’s now my wife, and I said, ‘I have to scratch this itch, but I can’t tell anyone at JP Morgan because that’s not how I’ll ever climb this ladder’.”

Kramer started taking a fashion entrepreneurship program at night at Parsons School of Design at the New School. He would leave JP Morgan, tell everyone he was working with that he was going to business school, and then hop on the subway and go downtown to fashion school.

“I was living two very separate lives. I started to lose interest in finance, and I was toying around with starting my own fashion brand,” says Kramer. “My wife was working at Pinterest, loving life, loving the tech and media space, and she came home and said, ‘My boss offered me a promotion if we move back to Chicago’. She had moved to New York so I could work at JP Morgan, and clearly, I wasn’t happy working in finance, so I said, ‘Let’s go home’.”

When he got back to Chicago, Kramer realized his dream of starting his own fashion brand was going to more challenging than anticipated. So after some aggressive networking, he landed a position in 2017 at Meta helping market major brands on Facebook and Instagram.

“I realized I had a tool that I could use to stay connected to the fashion industry with Instagram probably being the most powerful

platform today for brands, especially fashion brands,” Kramer says. “I could go find podcasters or bloggers or influencers that I admire or that I follow on Instagram and tell them, ‘Hey, I’m an employee at Instagram. I’m just of fan of yours let me know how I can help for free’.”

Turns out Instagram encourages employees to get out and about and network with advertisers. While Kramer primarily worked on the McDonalds business, he started networking— almost as a hobby, he says—with a number of powerful individuals in New York City within the menswear and fashion space. He ended up building a robust rolodex of people in the industry.

When Del Toro came calling, Kramer had the perfect resume for the position—a finance background, digital marketing experience at Instagram, and a bulky network of industry influencers. His fashion nerdiness was also an asset. He survived an intense interview process—the owners who hired him are Stanford

MBAs—and started just in time for the busy holiday shopping season.

Kramer says he was fortunate to succeed Andrew Roberts, the first CEO hired under the current ownership, who focused on getting a nearly dormant Del Toro brand up and running again.

“His focus was much more on the operations side. He did a phenomenal job getting a business running that was at a low point when it was purchased,” Kramer says. “He did a great job of turning the lights back on. The operation side is really tight.”

Kramer is focused on a number of issues that align with skills and experience. These include getting a better return for digital ad buys (the vast majority of sales are direct to consumer via the company’s website), expanding Del Toro’s wedding strategy, and his personal passion—comfort.

“Comfort is everything. That was one of my key initiatives and something that I carry through everything I do as I work in product development,” he says. “Now that people are starting to come out more and more—to dinner or to their offices—people are getting dressed again but they don’t want to give up that comfort that they were able to experience the past couple of years.”

When he was returning to Meta’s offices in the city, Kramer, who lives a seven-minute walk from downtown Glencoe, says he wanted a loafer that he could put on and walk to the train, then leave Ogilvy and walk across the river into the Loop, without blisters.

“I’m the guy who wears loafers barefoot. It was really important before I even joined the company that the shoes were comfortable,” Kramer says. “Can I take them out of the box, put them on, walk to the train, and then walk around the city all day?”

Del Toro shoes are made in two factories in Italy—one in Milan and one just outside of Naples. Kramer was just in Italy a month ago and sat down with the shoemakers, walking through the design process and designing new shoes together.

“It was very surreal. It was a very wild trip, going out to Italy and sitting there and thinking, ‘Wow, I went to fashion school, and I thought my fashion dreams were crushed when I moved home,” he says.

For more information or to shop Del Toro, visit deltoroshoes.com.

Chad Kramer, CEO of Del Toro, has the company striding in the right direction.

SEEING GREEN

Hartley Botanic reveals the best ways to upgrade and refresh your Greenhouse space this spring.

Luxury Glasshouse and Greenhouse manufacturer Hartley Botanic is the authority on the world’s most desirable Glasshouses. When it comes to craftsmanship and structural integrity, a Hartley Botanic Glasshouse is the “finest money can buy,” and that’s not to mention the beauty and elegance of its incomparable range of structures.

With customers around the world, and leading horticulture organizations, institutions, and designers choosing a Hartley Botanic, they are also an authority on how best to style, organise and refresh your Glasshouse this spring—to truly enjoy its potential.

Create a lifestyle area

Hartley Botanic’s Greenhouses and Glasshouses are primarily used for growing—whether that’s exotic or ornamental plants. However, the timeless beauty of a handmade Glasshouse can also add another dimension to the enjoyment of our gardens. A Glasshouse can be used as a multifunctional space, allowing us to stay outdoors and amongst our plants for longer - whether that’s enjoying a cup of tea while listening to the rain patter against the roof, or making use of it as an alfresco space in the warmer summer months.

There are many stylish ways to extend time spent in your Glasshouse or Greenhouse. Use internal partitions to separate growing areas from spaces you can use for relaxing. Think about the activities you could do to make the best use of any lifestyle space, whether dressing a table for al fresco entertaining, pursuing a hobby like painting or just creating a new “under glass” area to enjoy with friends.

Introducing home conveniences, such as an eco-wood burner, is also great way to warm spring and autumn evenings and provide an additional heat source for tender plants.

Invest in beautiful organizational accessories

There are many organizational accessories that can help you make the best use of your Glasshouse space inside, using a mix of shelving, staging, and partitions.

These also have the benefit of looking very attractive. Hartley Botanic offers aluminum staging options (including ornate designs) that can be powder-coated

in a color to match or contrast against your Greenhouse, providing elegant coherence. Pots can be stood on these, or alternatively shallow trays filled with a layer of grit or gravel can be used if this is kept moist a more plant-friendly habitat can be maintained. Gravel trays can be used in automated watering systems, reducing the rate at which pots dry out in summer.

Shelves also make more efficient use of space by occupying higher parts of your Greenhouse. This is particularly useful for trailing and smaller plants. Shelving also improves the appearance and visual impact of the Greenhouse by creating elevated displays of ornamental plants.

Other finishing touches to your Greenhouse or Glasshouse include adding a potting bench, compost store, or partitions.

Create different growing zones

The layout of plants within a Glasshouse or Greenhouse can be organized so as to provide optimum growing conditions at the same time as allowing gardeners to get maximum benefit and enjoyment. Using different levels of shelving works well both practically and

visually. Lower benches are useful for plants that are “resting,” such as corms like Cyclamen and tubers like Achimenes (hot water plants.) Top shelf staging is ideal for orchids as this can mimic their natural environment well, as they grow in trees. Different levels of staging are also pleasing to the eye, can be powdercoated to match the Glasshouse and means favourite plants can be displayed at bench-height.

Integrated aluminium cold-frames and growing beds provide further flexibility to develop separate growing conditions for different plant types. Cold-frames can also provide the perfect interim environment for efficient ‘hardening off’ of Greenhouse-grown plants.

If you plan to grow food crops, cut flowers or anything else in quantity, you will probably want to set up some Greenhouse beds. A Greenhouse built on a brick foundation, with natural soil as its floor will have the advantage of readymade growing facilities which can be incorporated at the installation stage. If the building rests on a concrete base, raised beds can be built or growing bags used for crops and plants.

Fill your Glasshouse with scent

Many fragrant herbs can be easily grown in a Greenhouse which adds a special sensory dimension. Lavender to help you relax and sleep. Chamomile can be used for anti-anxiety or Echinacea boosts the immune system. Growing herbs is also a great way to take advantage of the Glasshouse all year round, and especially as a shelter from the winter frost.

Herbs which are popularly used in cooking, such as Thyme, often have varieties from warmer climates such as the Mediterranean which mean they suit a Greenhouse well as they are not completely hardy.

Many herbs are ideal for growing in containers and can be kept by the door of your Greenhouse for ease of picking and so you can appreciate the scent they release when touched.

All Hartley Botanic’s Glasshouses and Greenhouses are handmade, bespoke, and made to order. For more information, visit hartley-botanic.com. During the winter months, Hartley Botanic is offering $50 off all new Greenhouse and Glasshouse orders *simply quote ‘50Winter’ to access the discount by the end of March.

IN SYNC(HRO)

BY BILL MCLEAN THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

Elizabeth Flatt has her one-way staredown with synchronized skating judges down pat. But the Winnetka resident and Sacred Heart School seventh grader isn’t a meanie. Far from one.

The fun-loving athlete and her Starlights Novice synchronized skating mates—all clad in Victorian-era dresses—glare at super-serious officials because it’s an integral part of their innovative, highly entertaining “Haunted Dolls” free skate program.

“We’ve heard that we’ve scared some judges,” says the 13-year-old Flatt, who also competes with Starlights Juvenile figure skaters, including her younger sister, 11-year-old Ellen.

The Flatt sisters’ mother, Grace, describes the “Haunted Dolls” routine as “creepy.”

So does Buffalo Grove-based Starlights Synchronized Skating Teams Director Heather Paige.

“They’re bringing old Victorian dolls to life on ice, telling a story, and all 16 of them are skating to haunting music,” says Paige, who opened Starlights in 1999, and works with Starlights Assistant Director Jenny Cherry. “It’s creepy and eerie.

“How would you feel,” she adds, “if you saw a doll staring right at you?”

Hands-covering-my-eyes frightened.

But there’s more to synchro skating, the fastest-growing discipline in figure skating, than theatrics. So much more. It requires athleticism, artistry, stamina, balance, precision, timing, persistence, and teamwork.

A total of 11 North Shore residents on five Starlights teams—Juvenile, Novice, Junior, Adult, and Masters—showcased all of the above at the U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships in Peoria March 1 through 4.

And 2019 Highland Park High School graduate Brittney Rivelli, a former Starlights standout, performed as a member of the Miami (Ohio) University contingent in the Senior division. In 2019 a Starlights Junior crew featuring Rivelli placed seventh at the World Synchronized Skating Championships in Switzerland.

Her U.S. Nationals appearance in Peoria last weekend marked her 10th and final one.

“Elite coaches,” Rivelli, 22, says of Starlights’ staff. “But they don’t just care about skaters’ goals on the ice; they’re also just as committed to helping skaters shine off the ice.

“I’ve made so many meaningful connections through Starlights, through the sport of synchronized skating. The best part of synchro, for a former young figure skater like me, is that you get to do something you love on the ice and not be

alone while doing it.”

Rivelli coached Elizabeth and Ellen Flatt at the Flatt sisters’ home rink, Winnetka Ice Arena, last summer. The Flatts and Winnetkans Ainslie Chapman, 12, and Jorie Thornton, 14, spun and glided and jumped and danced for the Starlights Juvenile team that captured a Midwestern Championship in January.

“My daughters’ confidence, because of synchro skating, continues to grow,” says Grace Flatt, a gymnast when she attended Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette. “They’re making friends easily, their social skills are strong, and they’re doing everything with determination and grit.

“I’m just so happy my girls have the best role models. It’s crazy to think they’re just at the beginning of their journeys and they’re being supported by the best athletes and coaches in the sport.”

New Trier High School senior and Starlights

Junior team member Kiana Eickbush, of Wilmette, competed with sister Mia, a sophomore at NTHS, for the final time last weekend in Peoria.

New Trier senior Mia Jackson, of Glencoe, also laced up her skates for Starlights Junior at nationals.

“My sister and I made eye contact during our last (free skate) program together,” Kiana recalls. “Looking at her then gave me exactly what I needed, a spark. It was like we both said, without speaking, ‘Okay, we’ve got this.’ Starlights’ focus on teamwork establishes a foundation that you get to display to judges and audiences. I’m so glad I got to experience the sport at such a young age.

“Synchro skating to anyone who watches it for the first time is mind-blowing,” she continues. “It’s fast-paced, with a lot of things going on, with beautiful choreography. Synchro skating is hypnotizing.”

Kiana and Mia Eickbush and Jackson helped Starlights Junior earn a bronze medal in January

at the Britannia Cup in Nottingham, England. One month later, at the Hevelius Cup in Gdansk, Poland, the same squad took fifth place.

The Flatt sisters, as well as the Eickbush siblings, got introduced to the sport of synchro skating at a young age at Winnetka Ice Arena. The team was a small one.

It did not vie for medals.

But the skaters considered their “Olympics” to be the annual exhibition they staged for their parents, coaches, and friends.

Speaking of “Swifter, Higher, Stronger,” the International Olympic Committee hasn’t approved synchronized skating as an official sport. That could change, though. Soon.

What’s more dynamic than a team of buzzing skaters, in unison, dazzling and entertaining spectators with soundly choreographed, scary-good, themed programs?

“It’s hard, putting a program together and then practicing it for hours every week to make sure we’re ready to compete,” admits Elizabeth Flatt, who knew she wanted to reach the next level of synchronized skating as soon as she watched a Synchro Illinois event in Oak Lawn a few years ago. “You’re skating fast, moving your arms a certain way, making facial expressions at the right moments, and focusing on tough moves.”

One such move is a whip intersection, which is as dangerous as it sounds. Two lines of eight skaters whip around the ice, in close proximity, in small circles. Collisions happen. So do falls.

But, when performed smoothly, it’s quite a crowd-pleaser.

“Your brain,” Elizabeth Flatt insists, “has to be tuned in at all times on the ice.”

Results from Nationals: Starlights Masters Team member Maria Shapiro returned from the U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships in Peoria with a bronze medal. The 40-year-old lives in Glencoe. The Starlights Juvenile Team—including Glenview’s Mia Vick and Winnetkans Elizabeth Flatt, Ellen Flatt, Ainslie Chapman, and Jorie Thornton—took fourth in its division. Elizabeth Flatt and Deerfield High School student Sloane Farber, 16, skated on a unit that finished sixth in the Novice segment. New Trier High School students Kiana Eickbush, Mia Eickbush, and Mia Jackson placed eighth as Starlights Junior Team skaters.

Great, Britt: Former Starlights blade maven Brittney Rivelli helped Miami (Ohio) University’s squad garner silver in the Senior division at Nationals last weekend and land a berth in the International Skating Union World Synchronized Skating Championships March 31 through April in Lake Placid, New York.

Visit starlights.us for more information about Starlights Synchronized Skating Teams.

Synchronized skating has gripped athletes of all ages and become the fastest-growing discipline in figure skating. Many North Shore residents hit the ice at the U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships in Peoria earlier this month.

Starlights alumna Brittney Rivelli.

Photography by PJ Duimstra

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CAREER SALES—OVER 800 MILLION

EMILY

This problematic film about the life of Emily Bronte plays more like a work of melodramatic fiction than the intended biopic.

RUNNING TIME: 2 hours, 10 minutes

RATING: 2 stars

BY REX REED THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

The movies just can't get it right about the Bronte sisters. The family of a strict, disciplinary, widowed Anglican vicar with a wild, uncontrollable son and a trio of repressed daughters who lived in a parsonage and ended up shocking the world by writing passionate potboilers that became historic literary classics is obvious fodder for Victorian soap opera.

What a pity, then, that the fever-pitch hysteria of their melodramatic story has made for such paralyzing tedium on the screen. Emily, a colossal bore that centers on Emily Bronte in the days before she wrote Wuthering Heights, is the latest bafflingly overrated attempt to turn the Bronte saga into a boxoffice triumph.

Despite its visual appeal, its concentrated star performance by Emma Mackey and the dedicated obsession of Australian actress Frances O'Connor, making her debut as a writer-director, it gets almost everything wrong and seems more like a work of fiction than a believable biopic.

Emily, the second youngest of the Bronte siblings, was 3 years old when her mother died, and thereafter haplessly desperate for the love of her father, a stern and humorless cleric who was eternally appalled by the overactive imagination and disregard for acceptable social behavior that eventually turned her into a writer of elegant pulp fiction. Emily's ally was her brother Branwell, the alcoholic black sheep of the family, who introduced her to brandy, opium, and sex in a series of fanciful, self-indulgent escapades that are not, in O'Connor's long and tedious screenplay, entirely plausible.

I liked Emily better in the 1946 Warner Brothers epic Devotion, when she was played by Ida Lupino. That was a black-and-

white Hollywood concoction equally crammed with fictitious euphoria, but at least it was interesting. The Bronte sisters were vividly alive when acted by Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, and Nancy Coleman—and Arthur Kennedy gave a memorable performance as Branwell, the tortured alcoholic who frittered away his life as a painter. In this new version, played by Fionn Whitehead, he's a writer with no talent, not an artist, who competes with his sisters penning unreadable prose instead of preserving them on canvas.

Frolicking across the Yorkshire moors with Emily while they get arrested for spying on their neighbors at night through closed windows as budding peeping toms, he seems more like one of those precocious high school pranksters who claims the dog ate his homework. Instead of the bitch Olivia de Havilland played in Devotion, Alexandra Dowling's Charlotte Bronte is now the gentlest and sweetest of the three sisters—so ill-defined you'd never suspect she would someday write Jane Eyre, while Anne Bronte (Amelia Gething) is reduced to the status of a walk-on.

Other historical gaffes pop up throughout.

(Jane Eyre was published before Wuthering Heights; not after, and under a man's pseudonym, not the name Emily Bronte). The movie doesn't bother to speculate about the inner forces that inspired Emily to write anything at all but concentrates instead on inventing a naive romance with her French tutor (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) while he was employed as her father's curate—a character who never existed.

None of this has anything whatsoever to do with the creative dynamics of writing, and nothing about the way Emma Mackey plays her illuminates the tempestuous nature of Emily's scandalous life that paved the way on her journey to becoming a literary legend.

Please refrain from visiting any cinema showing Emily, especially if you snore.

Illustration by Tom Bachtell

Famed film critic Rex Reed weighs in on Emily.

EDITED BY DUSTIN O'REGAN ILLUSTRATION BY TOM BACHTELL

AMY OBERHOLTZER is passionate about supporting our children’s mental health and giving parents a soft place to land when their kids are struggling. She knows first-hand how hard it can be to care for a child with a mental illness. When her daughter was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and, later, an eating disorder as a teenager, Amy and her husband, felt scared and alone. She realized our community needed a place for people like them to find comfort and resources. She founded CATCH in her living room with other parents who wanted to help our community navigate the pressures we all face in our complex world. Now, this Northbrook-based nonprofit offers a robust set of mental health resources including a speakers’ series, a podcast, peer support groups, and connection to mental health professionals. Learn more at catchiscommunity.org. Oberholtzer is very thankful for an astounding group of volunteers that keep CATCH moving forward every single day.

#ON MY NIGHTSTAND

I just finished Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. While it’s about really tough stuff and not always enjoyable, it is a fantastic book. Her writing always leaves me with unforgettable characters about whom I continue to care even after I'm finished! I'm currently reading Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. Her stories explore our human identity and where we fit in on this planet. They are timely, relevant, and challenge us to think.

Because of CATCH, a lot of my feed is made up of mental health related accounts. I’m inspired by the incredible work so many professionals and volunteers are doing to support our collective mental health, and I particularly enjoy reading the positive, empowering quotes that are posted. Lately, I’ve been loving @dinosaurcouch, a comic about depressed dinosaurs who find hope in each other.

Music is really important to me. I listen when I walk, drive, work out, cook, and sometimes when I work. I have a wide range of musical interests, but currently a little obsessed with Dermott Kennedy's new release, "Sonder." I also am listening to the playlist I made for my birthday last year: "60 is Sweet." It includes Springsteen, Ed Sheeran, Maggie Rogers, and Chris Stapleton. I look forward to listening to the "The Daily" podcast every weekday morning while I walk my pup. It's one news story daily, produced by the New York Times, and it got me through the pandemic! I also enjoy The Axe Files with David Axelrod, and I'm learning a lot from Strict Scrutiny by Crooked Media. It's a podcast about the U.S. Supreme Court and is really interesting.

#ON MY MOBILE

#IN MY EARBUDS

HOT ROD

If you’re a sportscar aficionado who’s always wanted to own a piece of pop culture history, you’ve got until Tuesday, March 14, to put in your bid for a very special model. Rod Stewart’s 1989 Lamborghini Countach—one of approximately 658 examples of the 25th Anniversary model built during a three-year production run—has been put up for auction at Bring A Trailer (BaT Lot #100,301). Completed in November 1988, the car was delivered to the U.S. and purchased by none other than Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Rod Stewart in 1990. It was moved to Ohio in 1995, remaining with the same family until it was purchased by the current owner (and seller) in May 2022. The car is finished in sleek black over matching leather upholstery and powered by a 5.2-liter DOHC V12, paired with a five-speed manual transmission. Equipment includes Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection, scissor doors, a rear wing, a European-market front bumper, multi-piece 15” OZ Racing wheels, an Alpine CD stereo, power-operated windows and seats, and a gated shifter. Service performed under current ownership included the installation of a replacement brake master cylinder and a battery, as well as a rebuild of the brake calipers. This Countach is now offered with factory books, tools, a copy of the previous California title in Rod Stewart’s name, service records, a clean Carfax report, and a clean Montana title in the name of the seller’s LLC. Needless to say, the lucky owner will drive off feeling “Forever Young.” For more information, visit bringatrailer.com/listing/1989-lamborghini-countach-25th-anniversary-3/

SOCIAL LIFE

This weekend’s curated luxury trends MATERIAL PURSUITS POKER NIGHT

Photography courtesy of ILHMEC

After a two-year hiatus, the Antiques + Modernism Winnetka Show (A+M) returned to Winnetka’s Community House and celebrated 50 years. The event, co-chaired by Elyse Hahner and Kim Ronan, began with a Preview Party where guests enjoyed a first look at the spectacular pieces from more than 50 dealers and vendors, some of whom traveled from across the globe. The event continued through the weekend with thousands of people in attendance. Guest speakers included the Antiques Roadshow’s J. Michael Flanigan, HGTV Design Star winner Meg Caswell, and Floral Designer for the White House (2009-2015) Laura Dowling. Presented by the Woman’s Board, all proceeds from A+M benefited Winnetka’s Community House. thewinnetkashow.com

THE CAVIAR CO. is taking its business from the restaurants to your home, hosting virtual events this summer to enhance your luxury experience and open your palate to one of the finest delicacies in the world. This sisterfounded and San Francisco-based purveyor of fine caviar offers a carefully curated collection sourced with aquaculture and sustainable sturgeon farming methods in practice. Whether you’re new to the caviar experience or consider yourself a connoisseur, join in the fun and purchase a flight for your very own athome date night tasting experience. thecaviarco.com

Designer, author, and philanthropist Charlotte Moss has long believed that flowers should not be reserved only for the rare occasion but instead are best deployed in everyday living. Moss’ delightful new coffee table book FLOWERS BY CHARLOTTE MOSS brings the garden indoors with inspiration for floral arrangements, container selection, and blossom placement throughout the house. Moss shares a decade’s documentation of floral concepts—from an intimate and welcoming cluster of blooms on a guest room’s bedside table to lavish displays for holiday celebrations. The photography evidences the visceral pleasure flowers bring to us both indoors and outdoors. Readers will be fascinated as Moss describes the contributions of past tastemakers including Gloria Vanderbilt, Pauline de Rothschild, Bunny Mellon, and C. Z. Guest who all shared a deep passion for all things related to flowers. Calling all green thumbs … your garden awaits. Flowers by Charlotte Moss, © Rizzoli New York, 2021, rizzoliusa.com.

ERIN PRITZKER, JENNA SALTZMAN

BLAIR KLEIN, DEB RABIN, ALLISON SATYR, TAMMY TRAVIS, AYLICE TOOHEY

SANDY WANG MCGOWAN, CYNTHIA BALLEW, LIZ MIHAS

MEREDITH SEGAL PAULA TURNER, LIZ XILAS, SUSIE KARKOMI, JENNINE DA PRA

JENNIFER FABIAN, REBEKAH SHALIT, TRACEY FELTER, RACHEL GRAY

Perfectly located in one of the best Wilmette locations, this one-of-a-kind residence is tucked away on a coveted cul-de-sac, East of Sheridan Road. The expansive Lannon-stone residence was designed by noted architect Abraham Epstein. Radiating timeless elegance, this stunning home offers superb architectural details, and has been meticulously restored, and renovated with no detail overlooked. This masterpiece with Lake Michigan views and its A+ location is beyond exceptional ~ truly a work of art!

MERRY CAREY

Highland Park resident Carey Cooper—a first-year member of the Jewish United Fund’s Youth Leadership Division in 1987— couldn’t be happier and more grateful to serve the JUF as its general campaign chair.

BY BILL MCLEAN ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT

Carey Cooper’s tenure as a lawyer in Chicago lasted a little longer than a typical pretrial conference.

“I loved the people and the city,” Cooper, of Highland Park, recalls. “But I didn’t love practicing law.

“I got out of law in my 20s because I was more of an entrepreneurial guy.”

Still is. Cooper, 67, heads Evanston-based Cooper Management, a financial services firm, as well as the LYFE (Love Your Food Everyday) Kitchen restaurant in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood.

His former jobs include executive positions at Redi-Cut Foods, Danaco Solutions, L3 Hospitality Group, and Chicagoland Equipment & Supply.

About three years after dismissing himself for good from courtrooms, Cooper got involved with the Youth Leadership Division of the Jewish United Fund (JUF) of Metropolitan Chicago. His late grandfather, Eli Field, had served the JUF as its general campaign chair in 1982.

Cooper’s current JUF role, since November 2022? Same as Grandpa Eli’s 41 years ago.

It’s an 18-month term. Cooper will lead the 2023 JUF Annual Campaign, which provides foundational support for a network of more than 100 human service agencies, educational institutions, and community-building programs in Chicago, in Israel, and around the world.

“My grandfather was amazing and a character and a half,” a chuckling Cooper says of a man who settled in Glencoe after growing up in Liverpool, England. “He was fearless and charismatic and persistent. He’d camp out outside companies and wait for employees to exit the buildings at the end of their workdays. Then he’d ask them to donate to the Jewish United Fund.

“My grandpa believed firmly in the importance of giving back to the community.”

JUF’s mission must have struck a chord with Eli Field. Founded in 1900, the communitydriven humanitarian organization seeks to “amplify (its) collective strength to make the world a better place—for everyone.”

It’s a welcoming and inclusive community, inspired by Jewish values, committed to eradicating hunger, isolation and inequities, and uplifting people to find health, harmony, unity, prosperity, and peace.

In 2022 JUF positively impacted more than 500,000 Chicago-area people.

The number of times the highly engaging and affable Cooper has smiled since being

named JUF’s general campaign chair probably surpassed that prodigious number sometime around noon on New Year’s Day.

“I went on three JUF missions last year,” Cooper says of trips to Poland, Israel, and the Middle East (Bahrain, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi). “My five days in Poland, during the summer, seeing what JUF is doing for refugees and others there … all of it opened my eyes. I was proud. There are massive needs out there, here, and in other countries, and the Jewish United Fund is addressing them.”

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, JUF advanced $1 million in emergency funds to its partners on the ground. Nearly $7 million in additional allocations followed.

Closer to home, JUF provided nearly $22 million in COVID-19 relief funding across the

Chicago area that fortified emergency financial aid, responses to health- and safety-related concerns, social services, organizational stability, and food assistance.

“Our staff,” Cooper says, “is so dedicated.”

Cooper has already sat down with 10 past JUF general campaign chairs to better prepare him for the work ahead. Some, he learned, had devoted 40 hours per week to the commitment.

“Mind-blowing,” he says.

Cooper was a busy man before he took over the post.

But he doesn’t mind, in the least, the additional responsibilities he now finds on his crowded plate of Things to Tackle each day.

“I’d never heard, ‘If you want to get a job done, give it to a busy person,’ until my grandfather Eli said it,” Cooper says.

“I’ve always liked being busy.”

Cooper plans to lead a JUF mission to the Kingdom of Morocco in May, mainly to explore the Jewish culture there and see how the Abraham Accords are working in the North African country. The Abraham Accords are a series of joint normalization statements initially between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

Morocco and Israel signed the pact in December 2020, aiming to refresh the countries’ relations.

“Morocco,” Cooper says, “has a rich Jewish history. The trip should be interesting and fascinating.”

Cooper attended Glenbrook North High School, where he wrestled for three years and played baseball—as a second baseman—for a season. The late Scott Sanderson, a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs and several other teams during a 19-year Major League Baseball career, baffled and overwhelmed the Spartans’ foes in batter’s boxes when Cooper (Class of 1974) was a student at the Northbrook school.

The son of Highland Park residents Phillip and Sandra Cooper, Carey earned a B.S. with a CPA designation from the University of Illinois and a J.D. from Loyola University in Chicago.

He has been married to Wilmette native and New Trier High School graduate Cheryl, an ophthalmologist, for 42 years. They raised children Allie, Nathan, and Douglas. They have five grandchildren.

“My wife is the better half,” Cooper insists. “Her passion for everything, her discipline … yes, she’s definitely the better half.”

But the other half of the union isn’t half bad. Carey Cooper continues to flourish as a businessman/restaurateur and to champion all things Jewish United Fund. He also has served as president of the North Suburban Jewish Community Center, vice president of the National Fragile X Foundation, and president of The Cove School (Northbrook) board of trustees.

Busy, busy.

Plus, he’s forward-thinking, especially when it comes to JUF.

“I’m all about doing what I can to expand the circle of JUF supporters, reaching and motivating our organization’s future leaders,” Cooper says. “That includes my kids and my friends’ kids. Too many don’t fully understand what JUF does, don’t realize the positive impact it has in the community, in Chicago, in Israel, and in other countries. But when they do, they get excited about our plans and our mission.

“I’m excited.”

The Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, 312-346-6700, is located at 30 South Wells Street, Chicago. Visit juf.org for more information.

There are massive needs out there, here and in other countries, and the Jewish United Fund is addressing them.

Carey Cooper

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