Michigan Avenue - 2014 - Issue 4 - Summer

michiganavemag.com NICHE MEDIA HOLDINGS, LLC

Share a smile with our multi-lingual cabin crew Say hello to Emirates’ award-winning hospitality from a cabin crew who speak over 55 languages, making you feel at home wherever you travel.

Fly Emirates from Chicago to Dubai and beyond, with daily ights starting August 5th.

Add a Dubai stopover to your trip as you travel to over 140 destinations.

emirates.com/us

tommybahama.com

Hi, Chicago. We love your beaches.

We’re proud to partner with the Chicago Park District and support this city’s beautiful lakefront. See you at the beach this summer.

T H E R I T Z C A R LT O N R E S I D E N C E S

•

M I C H I G A N AV E N U E | T H E S H O P S AT N O R T H B R I D G E ®

•

NORTHBROOK COURT

•

OAKBROOK CENTER

Available at Barneys New York Nationwide and Premium Spas www.moroccanoil.com

I R R E S I S T I B LY B E A U T I F U L S K I N

Some people have all the y

LUXE.

Laugh. Lov

t your sigh

L

,y

world in a

you know how, in oop Luxury.

312.662.1900 GRANT PARK SYNDICATED HOLDINGS, LLC ACCOUNT: 374784 LICENSE: 2179842. GRANT PARK CHICAGO SYNDICATED HOLDINGS II, LLC ACCOUNT: 374785 LICENSE: 2179848. GRANT PARK CHICAGO SYNDICATED HOLDINGS III, LLC ACCOUNT: 374786 : 2179844, WINTRUST MORTGAGE IS A DIVISION OF BARRINGTON BANK & TRUST COMPANY, N.A. A WINTRUST COMMUNITY BANK. NMLS #449042.

w way.

SOUTH LOOP LUXURY BY RELATED

From Grant Park to the heart of the South Loop

F ront Runners It’s been 69 years since the Cubs played in the World Series, but fans still line up outside Wrigley as they did in 1945.

The Friendly Confines

E

very seat was filled in the brand-new Weeghman Park when it opened at 1060 West Addison Street for baseball season in 1914. Thousands of spectators packed into the jewel box of a stadium, spilling onto the neighboring rooftops and the elevated train platform, to watch the Chicago Federals defeat the Kansas City Packers 9 –1. Built on the grounds of a former seminary, the park—renamed Wrigley Field in 1926—has since then borne witness to some of baseball’s great moments: Gabby Hartnett’s 1938 “Homer in the Gloamin’,” which essentially clinched the National League pennant for the Chicago Cubs; the 1945 World Series pitting the Cubs against the Detroit Tigers, which begat the infamous “Curse of the Billy Goat”; and Ernie “Mr. Cub” Banks’s 500th career home run in 1970. Although much has changed since the park’s opening, such as the 1988 installation of steel light fixtures to illuminate the field for night games, many aspects of the stadium have remained the same, from the familiar evergreen seats to the visitors’ locker room, where Babe Ruth suited up before the notorious “called shot” in Game 3 of the ’32 World Series. With its signature ivy-covered brick walls and hand-operated scoreboard (which, surprisingly, has not once been hit by a batted baseball), Wrigley Field still welcomes fans of all ages to revel in the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, and the joy of the game, just as it did a century ago. MA

10 michiganavemag.com

photography Courtesy of Sun-Times Media

One hundred years ago, the North Side ushered in a new era of baseball with the opening of one of the most iconic stadiums in sports history. by hannah howcroft

LAWNCIERGE

Sponsor:

LAUNCHING THIS YEAR! Our unique party experience includes

reserved lawn admission, open-bar service with bartender and wait staff, and a multicourse dinner from park opening through intermission. The Lawncierge section is complete with high-end furniture, atmospheric lighting and a private open-air grill. A whole new way to “Ravinia” on the lawn.

GET YOUR LAWNCIERGE TICKETS ONLY AT

RAVINIA.ORG

Summer 2014

10 Front Runners 24 From the Editor-in-Chief 26 From the President and Publisher 28 ...Without Whom This Issue Would Not Have Been Possible 33 Invited 48 The List

People 55 Man with the Golden Goblet At 80, wine icon Anthony Terlato is more inspired than ever as the patriarch of one of the nation’s most powerful wine distributors.

58 Garden Goddess

With Verdura, Sara Gasbarra plants the seeds that help businesses grow.

60 A Life on Stage

Chicago theater artist Paul Oakley Stovall is emerging as a creative force to be reckoned with.

62 Full-Sail Family

Father-and-son team Jerry and Greg Miarecki aim for their third consecutive victory in the Race to Mackinac.

Elizabeth “Lee” Kelley is helping transform the CTA into a citywide canvas for public art.

68 Wild at Heart

As the Lincoln Park Zoo readies for its annual Zoo Ball, president and CEO Kevin Bell works to spread the message of animal conservation.

14 michiganavemag.com

62 Full-Sail Family

The Race to Mackinac is an annual tradition for the Miareckis.

Photography by Jason Little

64 Station to Station

Summer 2014

Culture 76 Night Music

The Grant Park Music Festival celebrates 80 years of kicking off summer in Chicago.

78 Theater by the Lake A trio of Chicagoans bring a dose of drama to Harbor County, and Redmoon Theater takes to the streets.

Taste 80 Tête-à-Tête

Restaurant Row gets in touch with its carnivorous side with the new Parisianinspired hot spot Tête Charcuterie.

84 An Apple a Day

Forget rosé. For Windy City imbibers, hard cider is the official drink of summer.

86 Three’s Company

88 Feast for the Eyes

The views are as stunning as the cuisine at these local spots.

90 The Write Stuff

Best-selling author Brad Thor and WLS broadcaster Bruce Wolf raise a glass at RL to the release of Thor’s 14th novel, Act of War.

16 michiganavemag.com

88 Feast for the Eyes

At Chicago restaurants like Terzo Piano, the food is as stunning as the views.

photography by Jeff Kauck

Hearty boys Steve McDonagh and Dan Smith team with star pastry chef Gale Gand to build a better burger joint.

Summer 2014

116 Life to the Max

For more than 50 years, Peter Max has been making Chicago—and the world—a lot more colorful.

Treasures

Features

96 Perfectly Pamella

116 Life to the Max

Designer Pamella Roland puts her chic stamp on Chicago with the release of a new line of apparel.

98 Carry On

The luggage brand Tumi takes flight on Michigan Avenue, while Tommy Bahama stocks summer essentials near Oak Street.

100 Ladies’ Line

Lori Wallis and Jen Gerenraich launch a new made-in-Chicago leather label with JGeren.

102 Wicker Park Whimsy

Bohemia blooms in Asrai Garden, Elizabeth Cronin’s lush oasis on North Avenue.

106 Gentleman’s Choice

Celebrity stylist and jewelry designer David Thomas proves that diamonds can be a man’s best friend.

Legendary Pop artist Peter Max has captured everyone from the Beatles to the Dalai Lama in his cosmic style. Michigan Avenue discovers the colorful stories—and the man—behind the masterpieces.

122 Millennium Impact

Ten years after its unveiling, Millennium Park is not just a success—it has proven to be a visionary work that has changed the way the world views Chicago.

By Dawn Reiss

130 The British Are Coming

From the summer opening of Soho House to the first Virgin Hotel in the US, British culture is impacting Chicago like never before.

By Catherine De Orio Photography by Brian Sorg

108 Close to Home

Interior designer Alessandra Branca shares her favorite places for living a well-styled life.

110 Split-Second Style

photography by jeff gale

Chicago watch connoisseurs will find the ideal accompaniment to summer’s outdoor activities in the season’s new chronographs.

18 michiganavemag.com

porsche design

The Shops at North Bridge | 520 N. Michigan Avenue | 312 321 0911 www.porsche-design.com

Summer 2014 102 Wicker Park Whimsy

A rainbow of flowers awaits at Asrai Garden.

Haute Property 143 Bring the Outdoors In Living walls are making some luxury residences feel like the Garden of Eden all year long.

146 Hot Sales in the Summertime Despite summer sojourns, the real estate market is mirroring the sultry weather.

The Guide 153 Michigan Avenue 101

Gold Coasting 160 No Place Like Home

When the going gets hot, real Chicagoans stay in town to sweat it out.

20  michiganavemag.com

ON THE COVER: ARTWORK BY PETER MAX, 2014

photography by Jason Little

You’ll be 101 percent in the know after consulting our bible of elite dining, nightlife, and shopping destinations.

shop.hamiltonwatch.com

INTO THE DREAM

KHAKI X-WIND

AUTOMATIC SWISS MADE Limited Edition

J.P. ANDERSON Editor-in-Chief Deputy Editor MEG MATHIS Managing Editor JENNIFER DEMERITT Art Director JESSICA SARRO Photo Editor JODIE LOVE Entertainment and Bookings Editor JULIET IZON Senior Fashion Editor LAUREN FINNEY Copy Editor DAVID FAIRHURST Research Editor AVA WILLIAMS

DAN USLAN President and Publisher Advertising Director GRACE NAPOLITANO Account Executives SARAH HECKLER, CAROLINE SNECKENBERG Director of Event Marketing KIMMY WILSON Event Marketing Coordinator BROOKE BIDDLE Sales Coordinator STEPHEN OSTROWSKI

NICHE MEDIA HOLDINGS, LLC Senior Vice President and Editorial Director MANDI NORWOOD Vice President of Creative and Fashion ANN SONG Creative Director NICOLE A. WOLFSON NADBOY Executive Fashion Director SAMANTHA YANKS

ART AND PHOTO

Senior Art Director FRYDA LIDOR Associate Art Directors ANASTASIA TSIOUTAS CASALIGGI, ALLISON FLEMING, ADRIANA GARCIA, JUAN PARRA Senior Designer NATALI SUASNAVAS Designers GIL FONTIMAYOR, SARAH LITZ Photo Director LISA ROSENTHAL BADER Photo Editors KATHERINE HAUSENBAUER-KOSTER, SETH OLENICK, JENNIFER PAGAN, REBECCA SAHN Photo Producer KIMBERLY RIORDAN Senior Staff Photographer JEFFREY CRAWFORD Senior Digital Imaging Specialist JEFFREY SPITERY Digital Imaging Specialist JEREMY DEVERATURDA Digital Imaging Assistant HTET SAN

FASHION

Fashion Editor FAYE POWER Associate Fashion Editor ALEXANDRIA GEISLER Fashion Assistants CONNOR CHILDERS, LISA FERRANDINO

COPY AND RESEARCH

Copy and Research Manager WENDIE PECHARSKY Copy Editors NICOLE LANCTOT, DALENE ROVENSTINE, JULIA STEINER Research Editors LESLIE ALEXANDER, JUDY DEYOUNG, MURAT OZTASKIN

EDITORIAL OPERATIONS

Director of Editorial Operations DEBORAH L. MARTIN Director of Editorial Relations MATTHEW STEWART Editorial Assistant CHRISTINA CLEMENTE Online Executive Editor CAITLIN ROHAN Online Editors ANNA BEN YEHUDA, TRICIA CARR Senior Managing Editors DANINE ALATI, KEN RIVADENEIRA, JILL SIERACKI Managing Editors KAREN ROSE, JOHN VILANOVA Shelter and Design Editor SUE HOSTETLER Timepiece Editor ROBERTA NAAS

ADVERTISING SALES

Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing NORMAN M. MILLER Account Directors SUSAN ABRAMS, MICHELE ADDISON, TIFFANY CAREY, CLAIRE CARLIN, KATHLEEN FLEMING, KAREN LEVINE, MEREDITH MERRILL, NORMA MONTALVO, ELIZABETH MOORE, JEFFREY NICHOLSON, DEBORAH O’BRIEN, SHANNON PASTUSZAK, VALERIE ROBLES Account Executives SUSANA ARAGON, JUDSON BARDWELL, MICHELLE CHALA, THOMAS CHILLEMI, MORGAN CLIFFORD, JANELLE DRISCOLL, ALICIA DRY, VINCE DUROCHER, DINA FRIEDMAN, VICTORIA HENRY, CATHERINE KUCHAR, FENDY MESY, MARISA RANDALL, MARY RUEGG, LAUREN SHAPIRO, JAMES SMITH, JACKIE VAN METER, JESSICA ZIVKOVITCH, GABRIELLA ZURROW National Sales Coordinator HOWARD COSTA Sales Support and Development EMMA BEHRINGER, ANA BLAGOJEVIC, EMILY BURDETT, CRISTINA CABIELLES, BRITTANY CORBETT, JAMIE HILDEBRANDT, DARA HIRSH, KELSEY MARRUJO, MICHELLE MASS, NICHOLE MAURER, RUE MCBRIDE, ELENA SENDOLO, ALEXANDRA WINTER

MARKETING, PROMOTIONS, AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations LANA BERNSTEIN Vice President of Integrated Marketing EMILY MCLINTOCK Director of Integrated Marketing ROBIN KEARSE Integrated Marketing Manager JIMMY KONTOMANOLIS Director of Creative Services SCOTT ROBSON Promotions Art Designers DANIELLE MORRIS, CARLY RUSSELL Event Marketing Directors AMY FISCHER, HALEE HARCZYNSKI, MELINDA JAGGER, LAURA MULLEN, JOANNA TUCKER Event Marketing Managers ANTHONY ANGELICO, CHRISTIAMILDA CORREA, MONIKA KOWALCZYK, CRISTINA PARRA Event Marketing Assistant SHANA KAUFMAN

ADVERTISING PRODUCTION

Vice President of Manufacturing MARIA BLONDEAUX Director of Positioning and Planning SALLY LYON Positioning and Planning Manager TARA MCCRILLIS Assistant Production Director PAUL HUNTSBERRY Production Manager BLUE UYEDA Production Artists ALISHA DAVIS, MARISSA MAHERAS Distribution Manager MATT HEMMERLING Fulfillment Manager DORIS HOLLIFIELD Traffic Supervisor ESTEE WRIGHT Traffic Coordinators JEANNE GLEESON, MALLORIE SOMMERS Circulation Research Specialist CHAD HARWOOD

FINANCE

Controller DANIELLE BIXLER Finance Directors AUDREY CADY, LISA VASSEUR-MODICA Advertising Business Manager RICHARD YONG Director of Credit and Collections CHRISTOPHER BEST Senior Credit and Collections Analyst MYRNA ROSADO Senior Billing Coordinator CHARLES CAGLE Senior Accountant LILY WU Junior Accountants PONNIE FITZPATRICK, NEIL SHAH, NATASHA WARREN

ADMINISTRATION, DIGITAL, AND OPERATIONS

Director of Operations MICHAEL CAPACE Director of Human Resources STEPHANIE MITCHELL Executive Assistant ARLENE GONZALEZ Digital Media Developer MICHAEL KWAN Digital Producer ANTHONY PEARSON Facilities Coordinator JOUBERT GUILLAUME Chief Technology Officer JESSE TAYLOR Desktop Administrators ZACHARY CUMMO, EDGAR ROCHE

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

SPENCER BECK (Los Angeles Confidential), ANDREA BENNETT (Vegas), KATHY BLACKWELL (Austin Way), KRISTIN DETTERLINE (Philadelphia Style), ERIN LENTZ (Aspen Peak), LISA PIERPONT (Boston Common), CATHERINE SABINO (Gotham), JARED SHAPIRO (Ocean Drive), ELIZABETH E. THORP (Capitol File), SAMANTHA YANKS (Hamptons)

PUBLISHERS

JOHN M. COLABELLI (Philadelphia Style), LOUIS DELONE (Austin Way), ALEXANDRA HALPERIN (Aspen Peak), DEBRA HALPERT (Hamptons), SUZY JACOBS (Capitol File), GLEN KELLEY (Boston Common), COURTLAND LANTAFF (Ocean Drive), ALISON MILLER (Los Angeles Confidential), KATHERINE NICHOLLS (Gotham), JOSEF VANN (Vegas)

President and Chief Operating Officer KATHERINE NICHOLLS Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer JOHN P. KUSHNIR Chairman and Director of Photography JEFF GALE Copyright 2014 by Niche Media Holdings, LLC. All rights reserved. Michigan Avenue magazine is published eight times per year. Reproduction without permission of the publisher is prohibited.

The publisher and editors are not responsible for unsolicited material, and it will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication subject to Michigan Avenue magazine’s right to edit.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, photographs, and drawings. To order a subscription, please call 866-891-3144. For customer service, please inquire at michiganavenue@pubservice.com.

To distribute Michigan Avenue at your business, please e-mail magazinerequest@nichemedia.net.

Michigan Avenue magazine is published by Niche Media Holdings, LLC (Founder, Jason Binn), a company of The Greenspun Corporation. michigan avenue : 500 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611 T: 312-753-6200 F: 312-753-6250 niche media holdings: 100 Church Street, Seventh Floor, New York, NY 10007 T: 646-835-5200 F: 212-780-0003 the greenspun corporation: 2275 Corporate Circle, Suite 300, Henderson, NV 89074 T: 702-259-4023 F: 702-383-1089

22 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

be local

Stop looking, start fnding速 atproperties.com

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Hobnobbing with Piece & Co. founder and CEO Kathleen Wright and Madewell events manager Jo Bethishou at our Madewell in-store event.

I’ve been an Anglophile for as long as I can remember. From Paddington Bear to the Romantic

Beard brothers: Bonding with ’80s pop idol Boy George over our shared hirsuteness while celebrating his collaboration with jewelry designer David Thomas at Ikram.

ABOVE: With my fellow judges at the Chicago Fashion Foundation’s scholarship event. LEFT: Kicking off summer with Rob Goldberg of Tommy Bahama and Chicago Park District general superintendent and CEO Michael Kelly.

24 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

poets, from the grass courts of Wimbledon to the UK music scene, if it’s from across the pond, my ears perk up. So I’m not surprised that suddenly the Brits have all of Chicago completely in thrall. New restaurants like Spencer’s Jolly Posh Foods and Tony Mantuano’s River Roast have locals craving lemon curd and slow-cooked roast beef; the just-opened Soho House has injected the West Loop with a dose of Cool Britannia; and Sir Richard Branson himself is preparing to open the world’s first Virgin Hotel this fall in the Old Dearborn Bank Building in the Loop. Call it what you like—stiff upper lips in the City of Big Shoulders, perhaps?—but the Windy City is having a very British moment right now, and we’re excited to explore it in detail in this issue.

There’s another big moment happening in Chicago this summer: the 10th anniversary of Millennium Park. Conceived and brought to fruition by Mayor Richard M. Daley, this was his baby and is perhaps his greatest legacy, and it has continued to blossom into one of the world’s great municipal public spaces under Mayor Emanuel. In one short decade it has become an absolute icon and one of Chicago’s most spectacular year-round treasures— Follow me on Twitter at although it’s particularly pleasing @JP_Anderson and at during these summer months, michiganavemag.com. when its spaces fill with the sights and sounds of a city at play: people splashing in Crown Fountain, lazing on the lawn of Jay Pritzker Pavilion, and taking in the city skyline reflected in the Bean. Read Dawn Reiss’s fascinating inside story on the moments that have made the park—and then do what Chicagoans do best in these glorious summer months: Get outside and experience it for yourself. Enjoy, and have a great summer!

J.P. ANDERSON

FROM THE PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER

With wine icon Anthony Terlato and his granddaughter Jo at Terlato’s headquarters, Tangley Oaks.

ABOVE: Celebrating with Megan Bueschel at the crowning of the winner of Mario, Make Me a Model at the Museum of Broadcast Communications. LEFT: Nothing like opening day of Wrigley’s 100th anniversary season with Tim Smithe!

We’re a city steeped in tradition, from the raucous pageantry of opening day at Wrigley

Field to the ceremonial pomp of dyeing the Chicago River kelly green on St. Patrick’s Day—and that’s just the month of March. With summer’s long-awaited arrival, we’re never left lacking in storied festivities celebrating Chicago.

Now in its third year, Ashore Thing, our official Parade of Boats Viewing Party, presented by BMO Harris Bank, is well on its way to becoming one of Chicago’s summer classics. On Saturday, July 19, at 10 AM, we’ll toast the 106th Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac with this celebration at the east end of Navy Pier, an event made possible with the generous support of our partners Belvedere Vodka, Celebrity Cruises, Coldwell Banker, Fiji Follow me on Twitter at Water, Mitchell Gold + Bob @danuslan and on Facebook at Williams, NBC 5 Chicago, Stella facebook.com/danieluslan.

Artois, Spex, The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, Toyota, and, of course, Veuve Clicquot! With 2,000 guests, it’s our largest party of the year, and despite its scale and star power, Ashore Thing still feels like an intimate toast to summertime Chicago.

Visit michiganavemag.com/ashorething for event information, photos, and to reserve your space. Complimentary admission is our gift to you.

Lastly, I’m thrilled to have legendary painter Peter Max provide our Summer 2014 cover art, as well as that of our Niche Media sister publications. From now through August 6, each cover’s original painting will be auctioned off at charitybuzz.com/nichemedia, with proceeds benefiting The Humane Society of the United States.

The artwork is a departure from our usual celebrity covers—but isn’t it fun to shake up tradition?

Have a great summer!

DAN USLAN

26 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANJALI PINTO (TERLATO); JEFF SCHEAR (RIVERS); MATT FERGUSON (MARIO)

With our guest of honor, Joan Rivers, on our way to celebrate her Michigan Avenue cover at Neiman Marcus.

THE VISA® BLACK CARD MADE OF STAINLESS STEEL

SM

Black Card Members Enjoy: An Industry-Leading Rewards Program § Exclusive 24-Hour Concierge Service VIP Treatment at over 3,000 Properties § VIP Airport Lounge Access Members Only - Black Card Magazine § Luxury Gifts from the World’s Top Brands

APPLY NOW AT BLACKCARD.COM OR CALL 866-BLACK CARD. BLACKCARD is a registered trademark used under license. © 2007-2014 Black Card LLC. U.S. Patent Numbers D677,330 and 8,640,948. Visa Black Card is issued by Barclays Bank Delaware.

...WITHOUT WHOM THIS ISSUE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE SUMMER 2014

Brian Sorg

Credentials: A graduate of Columbia College Chicago, Brian Sorg

Discover a meal as breathtaking as the city itself.

Café des Architectes - Blending French elegance with the very best in local flavor.

Sofitel Chicago Water Tower | 20 east chestnut street Chicago, IL 60611 USA | 312-324-4063

rsvp@cafedesarchitectes.com www.cafedesarchitectes.com

has photographed for publications such as Chicago magazine, Esquire, Glamour, Marie Claire, Rolling Stone, Spin, and XXL. He has also worked on advertising campaigns for Bucketfeet, Chevrolet, JBL Speakers, and other brands. Behind the story: “We shot the opener [‘The British Are Coming,’ page 130] with British flags on Memorial Day at a busy and iconic spot in Lincoln Park. We were certainly getting some confused looks.” Favorite spot in Chicago: “Being summer, I’d have to say the patio at Big Star: Tacos and people-watching are two of my favorite pastimes.” His inspiration: “Many things: other photo friends, watching films, or strangers on the street…. Some of the best moments I’ve captured have been unplanned, spontaneous moments, especially late at night. Things get weird after dark.”

Anjali Pinto

Credentials: Food enthusiast –

turned– food photographer Anjali Pinto’s true passion lies in telling stories. She frequently photographs for the restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You, and her work has also appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Vogue. Behind the story: “Over a tasting of the family’s favorite wines [‘The Man with the Golden Goblet,’ page 55], I talked to John Terlato about our shared love of travel. He recommended an authentic gyro stand in Paris, of all places, for my upcoming trip in August.” Favorite spot in Chicago: “The dock at Montrose Harbor. The big concrete steps are a great place to spread out a picnic and watch the sun set behind the city.” Her inspiration: “My horrible memory. If I didn’t document my life, I’d be sure to forget it.”

Judith Nemes

Credentials: A freelance journalist specializing in environmental issues, Judith Nemes has contributed to the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, and USA Today. Behind the story: “It’s startling the first time you come across living walls [‘Bring the Outdoors In,’ page 143] and see vibrant plants jutting out from a wall in an artistic way.” Favorite spot in Chicago: “Biking to Green City Market to buy the freshest organic food from my favorite local farmers.”

Her inspiration: “Finding people who are passionate about healing the planet and sharing their stories.”

‘KENNETH’

Kari Lydersen

Credentials: Kari Lydersen is a

codirector of the Social Justice News Nexus at the Medill School of Journalism. She has written for Crain’s, The Economist, and People.

Behind the story: “It was really fun to talk with Greg and Jerry [‘Full-Sail Family,’ page 62]. I was wishing I could do the Race to Mackinac— though the whole ‘Island Goat’ smell doesn’t sound so appealing.”

Favorite spot in Chicago: “Canal Origins Park. You can see the old Fisk plant on one side, the abandoned grain elevator on the other, with barges, tugboats, and rowers floating by.” Her inspiration: “I’m always amazed by people with rich stories, quirky crusades, poignant dreams, and steely resilience.”

Discover your Spex appeal

GLASSES • CONTACTS • EYE EXAMS • SUNGLASSES 21 CHICAGOLAND NEIGHBORHOOD LOCATIONS FOR BRANDS, LOCATIONS & EVENTS: spexoptical.com SCHEDULE a SpexWellness Exam

STOP LESS. SAVE MORE. BREEZE THROUGH THE WINDY CITY WITH THE FUEL-EFFICIENT 2014 TOYOTA PRIUS.

BUYATOYOTA.COM Options shown.

Invit ed

the month’s prestigious events and smartest parties

Joan Knows Best photography by Jeff Schear

Second City alumna Joan Rivers returns to Chicago to celebrate Michigan Avenue’s Women of Influence issue.

M

ichigan Avenue fêted May/June cover star Joan Rivers with a 300-person bash in the Precious Jewels Salon at Neiman Marcus. Sponsored by Walter E. Smithe and Hillshire Brands, the soirée included the presentation of a $10,000 charitable donation to Guide Dogs for the Blind, of which Rivers is a passionate supporter. “We all have our special charities,” said the legendary performer. “[For me, this one] is the most amazing.” continued on page 34

michiganavemag.com 33

Invited

Lori Allen, Kip Rodriguez, and Jennifer Sutton Brieva Nicole Townsend, Erika Young, and Erica Eckman

Maureen Schulman and Tina Koegel

Jason Knowles and Neil Ford

Ashley Reinsmith and Terese McDonald

Joan Rivers Cover Party

Neiman Marcus welcomed 300 guests to honor Michigan Avenue cover star Joan Rivers. The crowd enjoyed Torresella prosecco by Terlato Wines International and hors d’oeuvres by The Zodiac.

Asked how she manages so many projects, the tireless Rivers said, “I like the business. I don’t ever think that I’m working too hard.”

Dan Hunt and Kristina McGrath

Toni Canada, Mauricio D’Costa, and Jennifer Hamood

photography by Jeff Schear

Larry Wert and Jon Harris

34 michiganavemag.com

Barbara Ince and Jessica Arendas

Onasis Odelmo and Aaron Shirley

Presenting:

a Polished c ollection 25 years in the making

Lincoln Park Centre (across from Apple Store) / 1555 North Halsted Street (at Clybourn) Chicago, IL 60642 312.397.3135 / Mon thru Fri: 10am to 8pm, Sat: 10am to 6pm, Sun: 11am to 6pm / Complimentary Parking Available / www.mgbwhome.com Featuring: KENNEDY SOFA in lido-steel, MARSDEN CHAIR in marquee-silver leather, KIRA COCKTAIL OTTOMAN in Tibetan lambswool, LUCAS BOOKCASE in boulevard-graphite, EMILIO II SIDE TABLE, LINCOLN PULL-UP TABLE in sugar, BLAIR LAMP, SHIMMER RUG in quartz, AGATE BOOKENDS in black & white, HURRICANE CANDLE HOLDER, GLASS VASE hand-blown in the USA, DECAHEDRON OBJETS in polished stainless steel

Invited Nelida D’Alessandro, Cheryl Tricoci, Jennifer Doljanan, and Marvin Heisman

Senator Kirk Dillard and Stephanie Dillard with Mario Tricoci

Mario, Make Me a Model

Larry Silvestri, Megan Bueschel, Abby Dunn, and Matt Ferguson

From an original field of nearly 400 contestants, Julia Swibes was crowned winner of Mario, Make Me a Model 2014—as well as the accompanying ad competition sponsored by Jockey—at the contest’s concluding runway show at the Museum of Broadcast Communications. More than 500 guests enjoyed looks by Azeeza, Misanthrope, and other designers while sipping drinks made with 312 Spirits’ Wansas tequila. The celebration continued with an afterparty at Hubbard Inn.

Zvez Kubat and Kristina Bluhm

Jason Erkes and Shannon Peterson

Kristin Decker and Angie Lavicka

Salute to Summer

36 michiganavemag.com

Samantha Dillon and Veronica Arciniega

Eric Karp and Liz Barrett

Elyse Rodriguez, Delilah Swanson, Timothy Shelton, Peter Obrochta, and Juan Regalado

Tommy Bahama celebrated its summer 2014 partnership with the Chicago Park District with an intimate party at its flagship store on Michigan Avenue.

Paramount Events treated 100 guests to hors d’oeuvres and libations from the clothier’s restaurant menu, while CPD lifeguards modeled their Tommy Bahama–designed swimsuits.

Mallory Fritz, Greg Boos, Brenda Silva, and Claudia Tyner

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Matt Ferguson (Mario); Timothy Hiatt (Salute)

Julia Swibes

Catch a concert and fill your summer.

Fin∂ your ∫eacƒ

Please drink responsibly. ®

Corona Extra Beer. Imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL.

Invited

Rebecca Halpern and Anne Kavanagh

Golf Fashion Show and Masters Viewing Party

Erika Shavers and Susie Hurvitz

Photography by Nick Novelli (Golf); Timothy Hiatt (Madewell)

Casey Brozek

Three hundred guests watched golf’s latest fashions hit the runway at John Barleycorn in River North. Emceed by Golf Chicago TV’s Rebecca Halpern and Fox News’s Anne Kavanagh, the event raised nearly $50,000 for The First Tee of Greater Chicago’s youth golf education programs.

Rob Dauphinais, Mark Lowry, and Chris Tierney

Gabe Monroe

Sharon Schneider and Gretta Hermes

Amy Jacobson

Lisa Boyer and Liz Rauch

Ann Border and Brett Bulthuis

Madewell Shopping Party Mary McKenna and Matt Hurches

38 michiganavemag.com

More than 100 fashionistas descended on Madewell for an evening of exclusive shopping. Piece & Co. founder Kathleen Wright showcased her line’s latest offerings, while guests sipped Champagne and indulged in sweet treats by Alliance Bakery.

Rene Asulin and Kathleen Wright Christine Starks and Jo Bethishou Campos

Stephanie and Lauren St. Clair

Invited Lynn and David Weinberg

John L. Anderson

Mike Bellovich and Jenna Dickman

Music Matters

Lally and Candice Meck

James Denton and Eric Ferguson

Steve Stone, John McDonough, and Milt Pappas

Beth Heller, Grant and Joanna DePorter, Mark Stein, and Dutchie Caray

40 michiganavemag.com

Jason Morelli and Hayley Clause

Aja Evans and Jerry Azumah

7th Inning Stretch and Chicago Sports Museum

A VIP crowd toasted the opening of Harry Caray’s Restaurant Group’s latest concepts at Water Tower Place.

Chicago Bulls star Ron Harper dedicated two championship rings to the interactive Chicago Sports Museum’s memorabilia collection.

Brandon Marshall, Otis Wilson, and Ron Harper

photography by Patrick Gipson/Pedro DeJesus (Ravinia); Chase Agnello-Dean for Harry Caray’s Restaurant Group (7th)

Susan and Steve Rappin

More than 570 guests gathered at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel for the Ravinia Associates Board’s black-tie fundraiser. The board toasted its 25th anniversary by honoring founding president David Weinberg while raising nearly half a million dollars to benefit Ravinia’s Reach*Teach*Play music education programs.

Ron Kittle and Ernie Banks

Invited Tara and Hanz Shawel

photography by Mary Melka, Franz Perfect, and Bill Richert (wish ball); Robert Carl Photography (Service)

Allison Rosati

Leah Rosenfeld and Michael Laungani Peggy Kusinski and Jeff Young

Seth Meyers

Wish Ball Kara Harmon and Erin Orr

Comedian Seth Meyers headlined Make-A-Wish Illinois’s signature fundraising event at Soldier Field. Nearly 1,000 guests enjoyed a silent auction, cocktails, and light bites while helping to raise $1.4 million for the nonprofit organization.

Abigail Ellis, Jennifer Philbrook, and Casselyn Feinstein

Service Club Event

The Service Club of Chicago toasted the updated platinum evening dress department at Neiman Marcus.

Guests viewed Badgley Mischka’s Couture and Day Spring 2014 collections while enjoying bites and drinks

by Food for Thought Catering.

Pat Maxwell and Sherry Holson

Sharon Dalesandro and Kaitlyn King

42 michiganavemag.com

Rhonda Liesenfelt, Lezley Hodes, and Tammy Beeler

Larisa Kronfeld and Jennifer Lane

Mark Badgley, Mary Lasky, Wendy Krimins, Tina Weller, and James Mischka

It’s about more than just moments.

It’s about everything.

Sail some of the most exotic waters in the world on one of our Asia vacations. Unwind and feel renewed as you cruise in one of our luxurious suites where no detail is too small. Dine on dishes inspired by the four corners of the globe, while being treated to a level of intuitive service that has helped make Celebrity Cruises the world’s leading premium cruise line. And, with a wide array of Celebrity Shore Excursions to choose from, as well as a wealth of things to do on board, you can do as much (or as little) as you choose.

In the end, you won’t remember a single thing from your Celebrity cruise—you’ll remember everything.

That’s modern luxury.SM

Alaska • Asia • Australia/New Zealand • Bermuda • Caribbean • Europe • Galapagos • South America Visit celebritycruises.com/chicago, call 1-888-283-6374 or contact your travel agent. ©2014 Celebrity Cruises Inc. Ships’ registry: Malta and Ecuador.

Invited Ben Ziff, Gregory Carter, and Martin Parsley

Doug Moss and J.P. Anderson

Kevin Willis and Scottie Pippen

Designer Kevin Willis previewed the Willis & Walker Fall collection at the newly renovated men’s department at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Guests, including Chicago Bulls great Scottie Pippen, mingled with Willis while enjoying drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

photography by Tim Hiatt (saks); Francis Son (spring style)

Ryan Baumgarth and Toni Irving

Saks Men’s Store Event

Nick Roy, Raj Sai, and Lauren Petticrew

Nicole Fisher and Marisa Bryce

Megan Clauson and Jenna Redline

Joy Liu and Jessica La Russo

Katherine Kucharski and Michelle Cohn

Taylor D. Waring and Benjamin Cottrell

Spring Style Series

44 michiganavemag.com

Kaitlin Madden, Portia Stamps, and Kaleigh Glaza

The Underground rolled out the runway to showcase the latest in fashion for its recent Thursday night Spring Style Series.

Partygoers viewed designs from Wilfred Newman, Von Z, and others while sipping libations by Double Cross vodka.

Hannah Scott and Candyce Paraggua

INVITED

Lionel Rabb and Vesna Stelcer

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TERESA J. POTASIAK

Susan Eleuterio and Michael Dorf

Brian Hieggelke and Justine Nagan

Humanities Award Luncheon

Amy Rule, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Michael Kornick, David Herro, and Jay Franke

The Palmer House Hilton welcomed nearly 400 of the city’s cultural movers and shakers for the Illinois Humanities Council’s annual luncheon, which raised more than $400,000 for free public education programs. Mayor Rahm Emanuel honored David Herro and Jay Franke with the 2014 Public Humanities Award for their efforts in the field.

Ruth Lopez and Eva Penar

AD Banking products provided by Wintrust Financial Corp. banks.

Securities and insurance offered through Wayne Hummer Investments, LLC (Member FINRA/SIPC), founded in 1931. Trust and Asset Management services offered by The Chicago Trust Company, N.A. and Great Lakes Advisors, LLC, respectively. Investment products such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are not insured by the FDIC or any federal government agency, not bank guaranteed or a bank deposit, and may lose value.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TK; ILLUSTRATION BY TK

Christopher Barrett Politan, William Dumas, and Greg Cameron

INVITED

Jennifer Gambatese, Meaghan Stainback, and Cathy Nathan

PHOTOGRAPH BY TK; ILLUSTRATION BY TK

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHLOE CAMILLE JOHNSON

Benjamin Greenfield, Dan Uslan, and Alberto Rojas

Ashley Hooks Williams and Ryan Chiaverini

The Sound of Music Reception

Jennifer McGregor and D.C. Crenshaw

One hundred twenty guests celebrated the Lyric Opera of Chicago at its fête of Chicago’s The Sound of Music in the White Room at 850 Lake Shore Drive. Billy Zane led waltz lessons while guests indulged in Wansas tequila by 312 Spirits, hors d’oeuvres by Bottlefork, and pastries

by Julius Meinl at the soirée, sponsored by @ Properties.

Chef Kevin Hickey and Billy Zane

“The Bean” in Millenium Park, technically named “Cloud Gate” by artist Anish Kapoor, reflects a different and unique view of the Chicago skyline with each step as one walks around and admires its distinctive simplicity. The dedicated professionals at Wintrust Wealth Services discern every angle as clients amass, manage, preserve and transfer their wealth while providing sophisticated and responsive counsel, with complete discretion.

AD

Braden Smith | Executive Vice President | 312-291-2900

T he List summer 2014

Anthony Mackie

Beyoncé

David Doebler

Darlene Egan

Mary Beth Liccioni

Janelle Monáe

Steve Dahl

Bill Bennett

Sarah Wayne Callies

Belinda Carlisle

Bruce Norris

Nader Hindo

Mike Ditka

Melissa McCarthy

Beck

Natasha Patla

Joshua Taylor

Nick Roy

Jack White

Billy Joel

Rachel Dratch

Julie Cameron

Rick Bayless

Steven Wrobleski

Rick Kogan

Delta Rae

Dave Matthews

Lori Kleinerman

Herb Hunter

Sean Cannon

Paul McCartney

Sara Bareilles

Kevin Kline

Terry LaBella

Rachel Rockwell

John Calamos

Tony Bennett

John Mulaney

Outkast

Alberto Rojas

Kevin McCann

Angela R. Elbert

Rich Gronewold

Daniel T. Gibbons

Jacques Torres

Steven Tyler

Mila Kunis

Jeff Michael

Len Besinger

Carmen Rossi

Robyn

48 michiganavemag.com

YOU’RE INVITED. WE’VE GOT THE SCOOP IN THE LOOP. EXPERIENCE W CHICAGO - CITY CENTER

MEETINGS & EVENTS GUESTROOMS STARWOOD PREFERRED GUEST OPEN YOUR MIND WITH 403 GUEST ACCESS, AMPLIFIED. JOIN AND LET THE IDEAS ROOMS AND 10 SUITES, STARWOOD PREFERRED FLOW. WITH 12 W CHICAGO CITY GUEST FOR IMMEDIATE FUNCTION ROOMS CENTER SHOWCASES A ACCESS AND ZERO TOTALING 14,000 SQUARE HISTORIC 1928 BUILDING BLACKOUTS ON FREE NIGHT FEET OF CUTTING EDGE LOCATED AMID CORPORATE AWARDS - TO A VIBRANT MIX CONFERENCE FACILITIES, OFFICES AND CULTURAL OF HOTELS AND RESORTS WE HAVE ALL THE SPACE ATTRACTIONS IN CHICAGO’S ALL OVER THE WORLD. PLAN AND TECHNOLOGY YOU LOOP/FINANCIAL DISTRICT. YOUR ESCAPE TO ANY OF OUR NEED TO MEET, GREET, 1,000 PROPERTIES SPANNING WITH A $45 MILLION FULL AND CONNECT. NINE DYNAMIC BRANDS IN 93 RENOVATION COMPLETED COUNTRIES. THINKING BIG? OUR IN 2010, THE GUESTROOMS, LARGE, AIRY 4,158 SQUARE PUBLIC SPACES, MEETING FOOT GREATROOM WITH SPACES + IPO RESTAURANT FOR RESERVATIONS ITS VAULTED CEILING CAN BOAST WHAT IS NEW AND 312 332 1200 ACCOMMODATE THE NEXT IN DESIGN. WWW.WCHICAGOCITYCENTER.COM GRANDEST OF DREAMS. WANT TO KEEP THINGS INTIMATE? CHOOSE THE COZY, LOFT-LIKE ROOM WITH A FIREPLACE.

©2012 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. All Rights Reserved. W and its logos are the trademarks of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., or its affiliates.

INVITE YOU TO

THE OFFICIAL PARADE OF BOATS VIEWING PARTY

PRESENTED BY

Photos Courtesy of Chicago Yacht Club

SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2014

10:00 AM - 1:00 PM N AV Y P I E R , E A S T E N D

JOIN MICHIGAN AVENUE MAGAZINE AND THE CHICAGO YACHT CLUB IN KICKING OFF ONE OF CHICAGO’S CLASSIC AND MOST CHERISHED TRADITIONS, THE 106TH RACE TO MACKINAC. BRING YOUR FAMILY TO WISH THE SAILORS WELL ON THEIR JOURNEY AND ADMIRE THE BEAUTIFUL BACKDROP OF BOATS SETTING SAIL ON LAKE MICHIGAN.

R E G I S T E R T O D AY F O R F R E E G E N E R A L A D M I S S I O N A T M I C H I G A N AV E M A G . C O M /A S H O R E T H I N G

FROM NICHE MEDIA, THE PUBLISHER OF MICHIGAN AVENUE MAGAZINE

LAUNCHING THIS SEPTEMBER.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT AUSTINWAY.COM NICHE MEDIA ASPEN PEAK | AUSTIN WAY | BOSTON COMMON | CAPITOL FILE | GOTHAM | HAMPTONS | LOS ANGELES CONFIDENTIAL MICHIGAN AVENUE | OCEAN DRIVE | PHILADELPHIA STYLE | VEGAS

NO

W

LE

AS

IN

The Height of Apartment Living

312.850.0111 OneElevenChicago.com Related Management Company, L.P.

G

Superlatives PEOPLE, CULTURE, TASTE, TREASURES

Anthony Terlato with his sons, John and Bill, and his granddaughter Jo.

VIEW FROM THE TOP

Man with the Golden Goblet PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANJALI PINTO

AT 80 YEARS OLD, WINE ICON ANTHONY TERLATO IS MORE INSPIRED THAN EVER AS THE PATRIARCH OF ONE OF THE NATION’S MOST POWERFUL WINE DISTRIBUTORS. BY LISA BARR

E

ntering Tangley Oaks, the 61-room Tudor Gothic – style home in Lake Bluff that serves as the Terlato Wine Group’s corporate headquarters, one is immediately transported to Europe. A lively group of guests gathers in the ornate parlor, and like the parting of the Red Sea, they make way for a dapper, broadly smiling man who recently turned 80 but appears at least a decade younger. Still at the top of his game, Anthony “Tony” Terlato is the chairman of the family-run Terlato Wine Group and

Terlato Wines, and he has no plans to retire anytime soon.

With a global portfolio of more than 60 brands from a host of world-class producers, including Gaja, Chapoutier, and Bollinger, TWG currently markets more than one out of every 10 bottles of wine priced over $14 and sold in America. Its collection has garnered more than 700 90-plus ratings from top wine publications—more than any wine company in the world. continued on page 56

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

55

VIEW FROM THE TOP

RIGHT:

After nearly 60 years in the business, Terlato has amassed a wine portfolio that’s been called the world’s greatest. BELOW: He got his start in the industry working at his father’s store, Leading Liquor Mart, on Chicago’s North Side.

“My only demand is that quality always comes first.”

56

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

VINO, VIDI, VICI Tony Terlato shares some of his personal passions. *the sporting life “Golf is the only sport that is never the same. I’m hooked because you never beat it. With golf, you could shoot 66 today, 84 tomorrow.”

*chicago favorites “Ravinia is special since we took our boys and now our grandchildren for picnics on the lawn and to hear classical music. Wrigley Field means a lot to me since Ron Santo was Billy’s godfather, so I took both boys to many Cub games.”

*like a fine wine “My wife, JoJo, is fantastic. We’ve been married 58 years and she just gets better with age. Now, occasionally, she even listens to me!”

*would love to share a bottle with “Jesus Christ. I don’t know what he drank at the Last Supper, but I’d love to serve him my wine.”

*the best revenge “Someone whom I will leave nameless once said, ‘We all know that Tony can sell wine; now let’s see if he can make it.’ And then, in 2007, [our Bordeaux blend] Episode got a 95 rating. I sent that man a note: ‘So what do you think now?’”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANJALI PINTO (TERLATO)

continued from page 55 Terlato isn’t one to dwell on past successes, though.

He grows animated when discussing the recent initiatives taken by his sons—Bill, TWG’s president and CEO, and John, its vice president—to expand the company’s portfolio with the new spirits division Artisan, featuring brands like the super-premium Swiss vodka Xellent. “No matter what we do, my only demand is that if we make changes, quality always comes first,” says the senior Terlato. “We want to maintain this standing with this new line of spirits.”

Known as the “Father of Pinot Grigio” for discovering and bringing Santa Margherita to the US 30 years ago, Terlato has worked in every tier of the wine industry since 1955, as retailer, importer, marketer, distributor, winery owner, vineyard owner, and wine producer. His vast portfolio of wines—which also includes Kracher, Il Poggione, and Lapostolle—has been called the world’s greatest wine list. No shabby feat for someone who began his career in the modest surroundings of his father’s liquor store, Leading Liquor Mart, on the city’s North Side, before joining his father-in-law’s wine-bottling firm, Pacific Wine Company.

Terlato points to an old sepia-tinted photograph taken of him at the liquor store. “Look, I remember when wine was 49 cents a bottle, and a top-of-the-line Lafite could be had for under $3.98—now worth upwards of $1,000 a bottle. Wine back then was not at all part of the dining culture. My good friend Robert Mondavi said years ago, ‘One day, there will be a wine bottle on every restaurant table—you’ll see.’ Of course, it turned out to be true.”

Terlato’s vision early on was to expand and diversify. What began as a company focused on marketing and distribution evolved into one with investments in vineyards and joint ventures in wine production. In addition to purchasing Rutherford Hill (located in Napa Valley) in 1996, the company owns Chimney Rock (Stags Leap, Napa Valley), is a majority owner of Sanford Winery (Santa Barbara), and has a joint venture with M. Chapoutier in Australia.

Once Terlato began to make his own wines, he felt intense pressure to produce wines as good as those he’d been marketing. He recalls a dinner several years ago with renowned Italian winemaker Angelo Gaja. “After we drank a bottle of his wine, he asked to try a bottle of my wine. This particular varietal was only a few years old, and I said, ‘No, not yet.’

But we did anyway, and Gaja said, ‘Tony, you learned fast!’ That was my greatest compliment.”

In his long career, Terlato has received accolades aplenty. Wine Enthusiast Magazine named him its 2002 Man of the Year, crediting him with “changing the way Americans drink” by bringing quality —TONY TERLATO Italian wines to the US; in April 2006 he received the Horatio Alger Award, which honors the achievements of outstanding Americans and whose past recipients have included Maya Angelou, Bob Hope, and Leonardo DiCaprio; and last year came the award of which he may be proudest: In the San Francisco Chronicle’s annual Wine Competition (the world’s largest contest among American wines, with a field of 5,500 from all over the US), the 2010 Terlato Family Vineyards Pinot Noir won the title “Best of the Show.”

For Terlato, the drive to succeed is simple. “All of this is for my family,” he says. “I want them to possess the same love and passion that I do—that’s the heritage I give to my children.” MA

talent patrol Sara Gasbarra, seen here at Green City Market, is the secret behind the vegetables served at many top Chicago hotels and restaurants.

Glenview to tend her parents’ garden. Early on, that “weird stuff” meant cauliflower and watermelon; later, when her passion for gardening drew her to volunteer at Green City Market’s childcentric Edible Gardens, it signified even more exotic foods. “We did an Asian row of things like Japanese rat-tailed radishes, which no one had seen before,” she says, reminiscing about her days of teaching youngsters about veggies like cowpeas, okra, and collard greens.

These days, the Lakeview resident can grow anything she wants—and she does, as founder of the custom garden installation company Verdura, which she established in Wake-up call: 2011 after her horticultural skills drew the “In the morning, attention of businesses like Floriole Café & there’s nothing Bakery and Hilton Chicago. Taking on I savor more than sitting outside Hilton as a client, Gasbarra says, “forced with an iced me to come up with a business plan and Americano at a name.” That name, the Italian word for Caffe Streets.” “vegetable,” hearkens to both her heritage Works of art: and her lifelong passion for produce. The “I collect art books company specializes in custom crop instaland have several signed first-edition lations and season-long maintenance for books by Judy hospitality clients, including Palmer House Chicago.”

Hilton, where, three f loors beneath the hotel, Gasbarra has installed a farm with polar white and pink oyster mushrooms, which she expects to harvest in July.

Services begin with a consultation and site visit by Gasbarra, who determines the scope of the project and which crops to grow. She then installs irrigation systems with automatic timers, planting in spring and visiting each garden every two weeks thereafter for upkeep through fall. For the Italian Village restaurants, for example, she grows only a few crops in large quantities, such as tomatoes, basil, and arugula (“They did a fantastic tomato production with 15 plants, and they were taking tomatoes off their roof all summer long,” Gasbarra notes of last year’s harvest), while for With Verdura, Sara Gasbarra plants the seeds that the South Loop fine-dining mainstay Acadia, she help businesses grow. by matt kirouac focuses on “daintier” specialty products—think edible flowers, microgreens, various basils—that she tends to in a smaller garden. About her clients, she says, ara Gasbarra’s green thumb has always been a little off-kilter. Her “They’re all really fun because they’re all really unique.”

While gardening is now Gasbarra’s profession, it’s also still her passion— Italian father steered her toward traditional vegetable fare, teaching her to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers in their Glenview and she delights in taking her work home to her Ukrainian Village garden, garden. But Gasbarra felt an attraction to more unusual plants. “I always where she grows sylvetta arugula, Mexican sour gherkins (“They’re like baby wanted to grow weird stuff,” admits the 37-year-old, who studied art his- watermelons”), Thai basil, and garnet mustard. “Growing up, it was traditory at DePaul University but found herself more interested in returning to tional Italian,” she says. “Now I get to be creative.” verdurachicago.com MA

Insight

S

58 michiganavemag.com

photography by Katrina Wittkamp

Garden Goddess

FAll in loVE All oVEr AGAin WiTH THE rAViSHinG MuSiCAl...

JunE 27 – AuGuST 3 BiG, BEAuTiFul AnD BEGuilinG, BRIGADOON iS A MAGiCAl AnD SWEEPinG FAnTASy. When American tourists Tommy and Jeff get lost on vacation in Scotland, they stumble upon Brigadoon, a mythical village that appears for only one day each century.

TiCkETS STArT AT JuST $25!

Featuring a cast of 28 actors, Brigadoon is this summer’s musical spectacular!

312.443.3800 | GoodmanTheatre.org For GrouPS 15+ only: 312.443.3820

PETTErino’S Major Corporate Sponsor

Corporate Sponsor Partner

Corporate Sponsor Partner

Production Support

Media Partner

Exclusive Airline of Goodman Theatre

Preferred Partner

dynamo

Paul Oakley Stovall’s play Immediate Family will be directed by Phylicia Rashad at LA’s Mark Taper Forum in early 2015.

A Life on Stage P

aul Oakley Stovall has loved the spotlight ever since his turn as the title character in a kindergarten production of Jack in the Box. These days, the South Side native and ensemble member of About Face Theatre is popping up all over: in Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Norris’s latest world-premiere play at Steppenwolf, The Qualms; in an upcoming production of his own play Immediate Family (to be directed by Phylicia Rashad at LA’s Mark Taper Forum); and in two cabaret shows in Charlotte, North Carolina. His new musical Clear is also heading to the stage. As he prepared for the opening of The Qualms, the multitasking artist chatted with Michigan Avenue about his creative inspirations and his love for Chicago’s arts scene.

The Qualms opens July 3. What excites you about the play?

The frank talk about racial and sexual politics in America. It’s bold; people are going to have a hard time with it. You talk about the state of marriage… and this play tears it all down—fidelity, monogamy, what marriage means— in a wonderful way. It blows it all to smithereens.

What inspired you to start writing your own plays?

About Face was planning a new-works festival, and they thought I might sing a song or host the evening, and I told a complete lie. I said, “I want to present my play.” I made something up on the spot and had to ultimately

60 michiganavemag.com

create it, which oddly enough became Immediate Family.

You travel regularly to perform, but Chicago is still your home.

What about the city feeds your creativity?

There is something about living in a place where we have extreme seasons. You’re tough. All that aside, the artistic scene is second to none.

Where do you find inspiration?

From the people around me. That sounds trite, but it’s true. Someone will pass me a book—Neil Patrick Harris gave me A Confederacy of Dunces for opening night of Rent when we were doing that [in LA in 1997], and it interested me in that style of storytelling.

Is there a performer whose career you see as a model?

I’d love to have the courage to say my truth the way James Baldwin did, and the energy and wherewithal to put it out there the way Paul Robeson did.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I hope to be happily busy, as I am now. I believe that the best life is one where it’s only at the end when you look back and say, “Oh—all those things I did.” I don’t want to be like, “Oh, I didn’t do that.” I want to be ready when it’s time to go. Steppenwolf Theatre’s premiere production of The Qualms runs July 3–August 31. 1650 N. Halsted St., 312-335-1650; steppenwolf.org MA

photography by Ivor Karabatkovic

From a role at Steppenwolf to multiple productions of his own plays, Chicago’s Paul Oakley Stovall is emerging as a creative force to be reckoned with. by j.p. anderson

WORK HARD or PLAY HARD?

Choice.

Your Life, Your NOW LEASING

K2 Apartments, 365 Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60661 | 855-886-7774 | k2apts.com

partners in crime

Full-Sail Family FATHER-AND-SON TEAM JERRY AND GREG MIARECKI AIM FOR THEIR THIRD CONSECUTIVE VICTORY IN THE RACE TO MACKINAC. by kari lydersen

62 michiganavemag.com

The Race to Mackinac traverses the length of Lake Michigan, and last year the Miareckis finished in just under 74 hours.

photography by Jason Little

A

s menacing storm clouds gathered over Lake Michigan on a recent Saturday morning, Jerry and Greg Miarecki sat in the Chicago Yacht Club reminiscing about their first Race to Mackinac as a team. “We were just happy to finish that year,” muses Jerry of his son Greg’s inaugural contest aboard their Ericson 35 sailboat, Providence, in 1986.

“I wasn’t,” interjects Greg, who was a highly competitive 13-year-old at the time.

Now 41, he says his earliest memory is of being a toddler aboard his family’s previous boat, Calypso, in 1976. His father was “more concerned about getting the family there safely,” explains Jerry, 68, given the rough weather and their “motley crew.”

This complementary dynamic has served the duo well in their three decades of racing together.

For the past two years, they have won their division in the storied Race to Mackinac, a 333-mile journey from Chicago to Mackinac Island, taking the Chicago-Mackinac Trophy in 2012 and the Mackinac Cup in 2013 (the prizes alternate between the race’s two major divisions). On July 19, the Miareckis hope to win another ChicagoMackinac Trophy in this year’s race, the 106th.

Although their temperaments differ, the pair’s division of labor is the same for every race. Jerry (a program manager for the telecom firm AlcatelLucent) oversees pre-race preparations, and Greg (an assistant dean and adjunct professor at the University of Illinois College of Law) takes the lead in the water. “I get the boat to the starting line,” says Jerry. “Greg gets us to the finish—very quickly.”

Both men have earned the nickname “Island Goat” for participating in the race more than 25 times (31 for Jerry, 28 for Greg), but the Miareckis demur when asked about the odds of retaining their title. Greg insists that a successful race is one-third boat preparation, one-third skill, and one-third chance. “The last two years, we’ve had some really good luck, but you can’t necessarily count on that kind of luck continuing,” Greg admits. “We’ll see how the cards play.” MA

MEMBER OF THE REVEL GROUP

WWW.REVELSPACE.COM / 773-486-9010

native

Station H to Station This summer, Elizabeth “Lee” Kelley is helping transform the CTA into a citywide canvas for large-scale public art. by brian justice

er business card reads “Project Coordinator” for the Chicago Transit Authority, but Elizabeth “Lee” Kelley is actually a doyenne of the city’s art scene. An art historian with a master’s degree from the University of Chicago and a PhD from the University of Louisville (not to mention an art-savvy spouse in local sculptor Terrence Karpowicz), Kelley is currently managing the CTA’s $3.5 million initiative to increase public art in 15 recently rehabilitated Red Line stations. As she prepares to unveil several of the artworks, Kelley shares with Michigan Avenue some of her favorite pieces, her passion for the neighborhoods she’s come to know through her work, and the function of public art for the CTA. “After coming to Chicago to get my master’s, I went to Louisville to get my PhD, but I loved the city and wanted to come back and be in a vibrant place to finish researching my dissertation.

I also wanted to work first, so I got a job directing an outdoor sculpture exhibition at

64 michiganavemag.com

Navy Pier. Then I met the director of the city’s public art program and said, ‘I’ve been researching my dissertation, and to avoid losing my mind I’d really like to do something. Do you need an intern?

I’ll work for free.’ He hired me for a six-month project. Eventually I got his job and was with the city for 12 years. That’s when I first became involved with public art in CTA stations.

“Art on the CTA works differently from other public art in Chicago. It needs to be colorful and lively and perk up the surroundings, and it’s intended to enhance the transit experience.

Artists must consider the location of the station— the neighborhood, the cityscape, the community it serves, the architecture, and the way people use that station—and the artists’ challenge is to represent their personal aesthetic in a very public location and for a very broad audience.

“I used to live in Streeterville and now I’m in Bridgeport, which is emerging as the new hip continued on page 66

photography by Katrina Wittkamp (Kelley)

Elizabeth “Lee” Kelley (left) in front of Jason Pickleman’s Mont/Rose: Area in the Brown Line’s Montrose Station. below: Jim Bachor’s installation in the Thorndale Station.

HOLIDAY PARTIES

SET THE SCENE

The Godfrey Hotel Chicago has an energy and style all its own.

Book your holiday party today in our event space. With our professional planners and our extensive catering options, you can count on us to make sure your holiday party steals the show.

DISCOVER YOUR ELEMENT at The Godfrey Hotel Chicago.

S A L E S @ G O D F R E Y H O T E LC H I C AG O.C O M

1 2 7 w e s t h u r o n At L A s A L L e , c h i c Ag o , i L 6 0 6 5 4

|

P

312 649 2000

|

g o d f r e y h o t e Lc h i c Ag o.c o m

native

left:

The Bridgeport Art Center’s gallery shows work by the more than 100 artists with studios in the building. below: Just a few blocks away, Pleasant House Bakery specializes in savory pies and unique sweets.

66 michiganavemag.com

Lakeview, and Rogers Park, and through the Red Line projects I’m getting to know even more neighborhoods, such as Edgewater, Uptown, Chinatown, Bronzeville, Englewood, Roseland, and Austin. There is a fabulous soul food place, MacArthur’s Restaurant, on West Madison, with amazing fried chicken and peach cobbler.

I thought it was my secret, but lo and behold, it’s a regular place for President Obama.

“I am fascinated with Theaster Gates’s vision and commitment to the Greater Grand Crossing area. Dorchester Projects is a cluster of buildings he’s transformed into art and community spaces, and it’s having a ripple effect on the neighborhood.

There are layers of depth, of community organizations and artists, in every neighborhood in Chicago. Theaster exemplifies that.

“Four of the Red Line projects are large-scale marble, glass, and tile installations, and those artists’ designs are being translated into mosaics by fabricators in Germany, Mexico, and Canada.

Jim Bachor’s involves applying those materials to an irregular surface, which is a real challenge.

He studied the neighborhood and created an elaborate design that truly represents everything going on there, with detail and a wild sense of humor. That installation, at Thorndale, causes me great panic, and also great feelings of joy.

“The artists have to remember that people will see their work every day for years. These are transit stations. People have to move through quickly and efficiently. The art needs to be appreciated at a glance, but also be greater than the sum of its parts.

You have to engage your audience but not compete with way-finding. You don’t want people to stop to take a closer look at the art and not find their way to the stairway.” MA

Lee’s Chicago Local places that get Lee Kelley’s creative juices flowing.

Bridgeport Art Center

“The center of the arts community.”

1200 W. 35th St., 773-247-3000; bridgeportart.com

Pleasant House Bakery

“Welsh miners’ fare, and unbelievable fish-and-chips.”

964 W. 31st St., 773-523-7437; pleasanthousebakery.com

Bruna’s

“My favorite restaurant in Chicago—it’s like my second kitchen.”

2424 S. Oakley Ave., 773-254-5550; brunasristorante.com

MacArthur’s Restaurant

“Fabulous soul food.”

5412 W. Madison St., 773-261-2316; macarthursrestaurant.com

Theaster Gates’s Dorchester Projects

“An art and community space that is transforming the neighborhood.”

6900 block of South Dorchester Avenue; theastergates.com

photography by Nik Bronder BlackhandProductions.com (Pleasant House)

continued from page 64 place to live or open a business. It has an old-fashioned small-town friendliness, but it’s quickly becoming the new artists’ community in Chicago, like Bucktown and Wicker Park in the 1990s. And the sounds are magical. Every night I’m lulled to sleep by distant train whistles and in the mornings I wake up to singing birds.

“I really appreciate the Bridgeport Art Center on 35th Street. They have outdoor sculpture exhibitions in the east courtyard, and there are more than 100 artist studios. Also, Project Onward is there, which is a studio program for professional artists with mental and developmental disabilities.

They host Portrait Slams each month—on-the-spot portraits at ridiculously reasonable prices, starting at $20. Each artist has an original, intuitive style, and I love talking with the artists as they work.

“Pleasant House Bakery is a tiny storefront owned by Art and Chelsea Kalberloh Jackson, classically trained chefs. Art was the chef at Bijan, and they opened this spot that’s like Welsh miners’ fare: meat pies, bangers and mash, Scotch eggs, and unbelievable fish-and-chips. But my favorite restaurant in the city is Bruna’s—it’s one of the oldest Italian restaurants in Chicago, here since 1933. The décor is cozy and timeless, and there’s a portrait of Bruna herself above the door of the dining room. It’s like my second kitchen.

“I haven’t been in every single CTA station, but almost. One of my favorites is the Brown Line’s Montrose Station. The art there is by a local artist, Jason Pickleman. It’s titled Mont/Rose: Area and it’s made up of 318 cast aluminum letters, simultaneously bold and subtle, that use the neighboring street names—broken at odd lengths, stacked, and repeated—to create new word combinations.

“I already knew Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square,

The Hunger Is campaign is a collaboration between The Safeway Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation to raise awareness and improve the health of hungry children.

spirit of generosity

Wild at Heart As the Lincoln Park Zoo readies for its annual Zoo Ball, president and CEO Kevin Bell shares his lifelong passion for animal conservation. as told to j.p. anderson

68 michiganavemag.com

“I was one of those few people who even before college knew exactly what their career was going to be.”

—kevin bell

above: Nayembi, a baby western lowland gorilla, was born at the zoo in 2012. left: Kevin Bell

photography by Todd Rosenberg (gorilla)

I

am a third-generation zoo person: My father was a curator of birds at the Bronx Zoo in New York, and my dad’s uncle before him was a keeper there. I moved into the zoo when I was 5 years old—we actually had a house on the zoo grounds—and was there until I went away to college, so I had 265 acres around me as a playground. My jobs before and after school were taking care of new species, primarily birds but later gorillas and hoof stock and nocturnal animals. I couldn’t wait to finish dinner so I could go back out on the grounds. I was probably one of those few people who even before college knew exactly what their career was going to be.

I was in my second year of graduate school when Dr. Lester Fisher, Lincoln Park Zoo’s longtime zoo director, called the director of the Bronx Zoo and said they were looking for a bird curator. I literally finished up my graduate work and was here a month later, in March 1976, so nearly 39 years ago.

The Bronx Zoo had a long history of famous biologists who were visionary curators and very conservation-minded—William Beebe, Lee Crandall, William Conway—but when I came here, Lincoln Park Zoo didn’t have that reputation. The one thing they did have was a zoo director who was known nationally because he did Zoo Parade with Marlin Perkins in the ’50s and all those TV shows that brought actual zoos into people’s living rooms for the first time, and that was Les Fisher. He is a remarkable, wonderful man, very gentle, who really cares about people and he cares about animals. When I came here, they were working on completing the first Great Ape House—the Lester E. Fisher Great Ape House—the hospital, and the commissary, and then they were starting on a building for penguins and seabirds, which we just tore down this past year. So right away I was involved with designing new exhibits and [helping] with new things happening at the zoo, and the Lincoln Park Zoological Society and the Women’s Board were a large part of the fundraising for that. continued on page 70

SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY

LEFT:

In addition to its exotic animal exhibits, Lincoln Park Zoo features the Nature Boardwalk, a haven for indigenous plant and animal species.

BELOW: School and community groups from across Chicago are regular zoo visitors. BOTTOM: As its 23-year-old curator of birds, Kevin Bell—seen here with his mentor Dr. Les Fisher—was the youngest curator in the zoo’s history.

continued from page 68 It’s important to remember this is one of the oldest zoos in the United States. The oldest facility we have that hasn’t been renovated was last done in 1981, and that will be torn down later this year, yet we started in 1868. The Women’s Board has been doing the Zoo Ball gala for 37 years, and they raise money for capital support, for endowment, for programmatic support, and they do an awful lot of work to make that happen. There’ll be a thousand people at the gala, and it will probably raise about a million dollars.

It’s really great to have that constant support.

The theme of this year’s Zoo Ball is “Monkey Business,” because we’re building a new exhibit of Japanese macaques just inside the West Gate, where the penguin/seabird house was. They’re the most temperate-climate species, and they live in Japan—they’re the ones that go into the hot springs in the cold weather in winter, and National Geographic photographs them coming out with ice all around their heads. For Chicago it will be a great year-round exhibit, since most of our primates are inside in the wintertime.

We’re actually building hot tubs right into the exhibit, in front of the glass, that will look like hot springs, so hopefully the macaques will come down and the people will be able to see

70

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

“Our mission is to help save species, not just display them.”

—KEVIN BELL them and enjoy that for themselves. That will most likely be a wintertime opening, which is fine for those animals.

Summer is an exciting time at the zoo. We have day camps here throughout the week with a lot of educational activities. And then on the weekends you have people from all across Chicago; that’s when you really see the diversity of our audience. It’s not unusual when you’re walking across the zoo grounds to hear six different languages being spoken. It’s a real treasure for the city—Dr. Fisher always said that Lincoln Park Zoo was the urban oasis in Chicago, a place where every community could come and get along and have a good time—and I know a lot of our donors feel that way, too. We’re the only privately managed free zoo in the country. For Chicagoans to support that, and be a part of something that gives everybody an equal opportunity to come and have a great time and a great experience, we’re fortunate.

The zoo has changed and improved greatly since I arrived. When we went private in 1995, at that time we might have had two people working on conservation science; we now have over 40. We have people working in other places, like the Serengeti, so we’ve taken a much bigger approach with conservation. Our mission is to help save species, not just display them at the zoo. We want people to learn about them, to understand the need to conserve them. Otherwise, zoos aren’t going to be here, and the species aren’t going to be in the wild. So we’re now a part of the movement to develop plans to save species by working with people in the field and educating the public that comes in our gates about the continued on page 72

HOPE is in the bag.

HALO / PERFECT FORMULA / ALEX AND ANI’S CHARITY BY DESIGN / AMRITA SINGH / DALTON COSMETICS / FIT 4 U / JAI JOHN HARDY / LAURA GELLER BEAUTY DR. MICHELLE COPELAND SKIN CARE / DR. DENNIS GROSS SKINCARE / PERRICONE MD / PETER THOMAS ROTH / PHILOSOPHY / PUR ATTITUDE / SHINE BY COLLE / SUPERGOOP TARTE / WOMEN WITH CONTROL / MARLYN SCHIFF

QVC ® Presents Super Saturday LIVE to benefit Ovarian Cancer Research Fund

Tune in and shop Saturday, July 26, 2pm ET

Special thanks to Kelly Ripa for her support.

QVC.com *Based upon supplier’s representations of value. No sales may have been made at this price. **Purchase price excludes Shipping, Handling and Tax. A public service announcement. Show dates, times, ofers and availability subject to change without notice. © 2014 QVC, Inc. QVC, Q, and the Q Ribbon Logo are registered service marks of ER Marks, Inc.

SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY

INSIGHT What: Lincoln Park Zoo Ball: Monkey Business

AD

SIP THE FINEST MARGARITA Experience the modern side of Mexican cuisine Taste guacamole made fresh at your table Savor fresh seafood and steaks with authentic sauces

STATE & ILLINOIS 508 N. State St. 312.955.0014 cantinalaredo.com

When: Friday, July 11, at 6:30

PM

Where: Lincoln Park Zoo, East Entrance, Cannon Drive at Fullerton Parkway TOP: John Ettelson, chairman of the board of trustees; Peggy White, president of the Women’s Board; the cochairs of Zoo Ball 2013; and Kevin Bell. ABOVE: Bell with Tina Koegel and Wendy Krimins of the Women’s Board.

Cost: $700 and up Info: 312-742-2296 or lpzooball.org

continued from page 70 need to conserve. We can’t save everything, but we have to figure out what are those key species for which we can really make a difference.

Our newest center at the zoo is the Urban Wildlife Institute. We know that there are a lot of exotic animals that share our space in Chicago, and the goal is to figure out how we can make spaces for both animals and people. So with our Nature Boardwalk, we tried to build a place that was great for people and also great for the animals—it uses the migratory birds and turtles and everything else—and use that as a model so that, not only in Chicago but in other cities, you can build spaces that work for both. It’s a living classroom for the kids, and just a nice place for people to walk or jog around. It’s also the largest use of recycled plastic in the state of Illinois: The entire boardwalk is made out of recycled plastic material.

One of our plans now is to take the Nature Boardwalk model and set it up at zoos across the country. In Denver the problem may be bears instead of coyotes, and in Florida the problem may be alligators, but you have those same interactions and you still need to create the spaces for harmony between the two. So we can help those other institutions, and we might even be able to find them a donor to get them started so that they can do it. Things like that are what really jazz me about this job—when we can do things that really make an impact, both here in Chicago and nationally. MA

Charity Regist er

opportunities to give.

By Lynn LeCluyse

CHEF BBQ BENEFIT

What: Head to Lincoln Park for Green City Market’s annual picnic, where the city’s top chefs prepare dishes using produce from the nonprofit marketplace.

When: July 17, 5:30–8 pm Where: South end of Lincoln Park, 1790 N. Clark St. Tickets: Visit greencitymarket.org.

SHINE & DINE

What: Step Up Women’s Network’s fourth annual benefit, featuring networking and tastings, raises funds to support programs that empower teenage girls.

When: August 7, 6:30–9:30 pm Where: Morgan Manufacturing, 401 N. Morgan St. Tickets: Visit suwn.org/snd.

LITTLE CITY INVITATIONAL GOLF TOURNAMENT

What: Little City raises awareness of autism and money to combat it at its 51st annual golf invitational, featuring a cocktail reception, a silent auction, and an awards dinner.

When: August 11, 10 am Where: Twin Orchard Country Club, 22353 Old McHenry Road, Long Grove Tickets: Visit littlecity.org/lci/reg.

DANCE FOR LIFE CHICAGO What: Support Dance for Life’s mission —to promote and raise funds for HIV/AIDS care, prevention, and education—at a gala reception, followed by a dance performance at Roosevelt University’s Auditorium Theatre.

When: August 16, 5 pm Where: Hilton Chicago Grand Ballroom, 720 S. Michigan Ave. Tickets: Visit danceforlifechicago.org/tickets.

AD

It’s no secret that Mario Tricoci Hair Salons & Day Spas is known for killer cuts and color, but the salon and spa has also been launching killer careers in modeling since 2008.

More than 400 potential models came out to fve open model calls last February. Three months later, after eliminations, makeovers, ftness and runway training, the fnal fve contestants walked the runway in a designer fashion show at which Mario announced his winner. Julia Swibes (far right) emerged triumphant and no doubt has a killer career ahead. However Julia is not the only one who may launch a new career as 90% of the contestants over the last six competitions have secured contracts.

Photo by Matt Ferguson Photography Ltd.: assistants Sam Doyle, Mike Shimer, Stuart Heidmann and Dave Witt. Wardrobe Stylists: Lisa Marie McComb and Amy Olson.

Ashley’s footwear provided by AKIRA Bucktown Footwear, ShopAKIRA.com. Hair styled

by John Gialluisi and style team: Rico D’Alessandro and Sarah Koseck. Makeup by Josann Rahning, Sandra (Patty) Gonzalez, Rachael (Kylie) Domanus and Jill Heiberger.

Hair color by Nelida D’Alessandro, Judy Johnson and Jennifer Doljanin. Location: Vertigo Sky Lounge, Dana Hotel Chicago. Special thanks to Fitness Formula Clubs, Factor Women Management, Chosen Model Management, CBS2 Chicago, Michigan Avenue Magazine and Wella Professionals for their part in Mario, Make Me a Model.

*Look for Julia’s winning ad for JOCKEYbra® in this issue. © 2014 Mario Tricoci. All rights reserved.

Pictured at the Dana Hotel wearing clothes by designers featured in the May runway show “Killer Collections and Mario, Make Me a Model,” are fnalists (from left to right) Aireal Boyd in George Zaharoff, Kaitlyn Kush wearing Agnes Hamerlik, Joseph Dolecki in George Zaharoff, Ashley House in Azeeza and winner Julia Swibes* wearing Lagi Nadeau.

James Petrillo, who started the free concerts in Grant Park.

Picnickers at the Grant Park Music Festival in the 1940s.

A daytime concert in Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

76  michiganavemag.com

Carlos Kalmar conducting the Grant Park Orchestra. photography by Patrick Pyszka (Bell, Kalmar); Christopher Naseman (daytime); Chicago Park District Special Collections (bandshell)

The Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus, with chorus director Christopher Bell.

Culture

The construction of the Petrillo Music Shell in 1931.

HOTTEST TICKET

Night Music THE GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL CELEBRATES 80 YEARS OF KICKING OFF SUMMER IN CHICAGO. BY THOMAS CONNORS

L

The Grant Park Chorus.

ong before Lollapalooza and Taste of all over America cannot really play because Chicago became Grant Park mainstays, they have the burden of selling tickets,” says the classically oriented Grant Park Music Kalmar. “For example, The Book with Seven Festival put our grand urban greensward on Seals, by Austrian composer Franz Schmidt—a the cultural map. Since its opening concert tremendous piece, with chorus, orchestra, soloon July 1, 1935—with a march from Richard ists. Nobody would touch that because the Wagner’s Tannhäuser on the bill—the festival’s return at the box office is so risky. And we promix of serious music and popular program- gram this type of thing all the time.”

That kind of daring does have its drawbacks, ming has proved irresistible, making it one of those events that define summer in the city. however. Clarinetist Charlene Zimmerman, Now, as the festival celebrates its 80th anni- who has played with the Grant Park Orchestra versary season, artistic director and principal for 38 years, laughingly recalls the time the conductor Carlos Kalmar and chorus director ensemble essayed Anton Webern’s typically Christopher Bell are offering audiences a wide thorny Five Pieces for Orchestra: “It’s all ‘beep, range of musical experiences, including a beep, bloop, bloop,’ and with traffic and sirens, world premiere from the renowned, Pulitzer nobody could have heard that piece. You have Prize– winning composer William Bolcom and to listen to it on headphones at home to actually the debut of The Legend of the Northern Lights, hear every note.”

Leonard Slatkin, music director of both the with a score by Grammy-nominated composer Christopher Theofanidis and stunning images Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de Lyon, France, and principal confrom astronomer Dr. José Francisco Salgado.

From the start, the festival’s “come one, come ductor of the Grant Park Orchestra in the midall” mission has made for an interesting mix ’70s, returns this celebratory season to conduct of listeners, with highbrow music aficionados Dmitri Shostakovich’s rarely performed The sitting alongside folks just looking for some- Execution of Stepan Razin. Of his days in thing to occupy a summer’s night. And while Chicago, Slatkin says, “There is no question that I learned much from the expethe relaxed atmosphere might rience, especially when it came to seem detrimental to classical finding new and not-often-heard performance, the festival has pieces. This helped shape my never had a problem attracting What: The Grant Park Music course of thinking for the remaintop-tier talent, with appearances Festival’s 2014 der of my career.” by dozens of stars over the years, lineup includes Whether rendering the familiar or including sopranos Lily Pons Gustav Holst’s going out on a limb with something and Beverly Sills, pianists Van The Planets, new, the Grant Park Music Festival Cliburn and André Watts, and Beethoven’s beloved Pastoral has soothed the souls and opened violinists Jascha Heifetz and Symphony, the ears of countless Chicagoans.

Joshua Bell—as well as marquee Kurt Weill’s And along the way, it has also creguest conductors like Andre The Seven Deadly ated a sense of community. In 1940, Kostelanetz, Arthur Fiedler, and Sins, and more. the newsletter of the Chicago Erich Leinsdorf.

When: June Federation of Musicians included a The festival’s principal conduc11–August 16 poem titled “Who Goes to Grant tors (and Kalmar is no exception) Where: Jay Park Concerts?” While much of it is have long championed American Pritzker Pavilion, 205 E. Randolph now dated, one couplet remains so music and shown an unwavering St., Millennium true, so many decades later: “The commitment to present new work Park rich, the poor, the sad, the gay/The by a variety of composers. “We Info: Call 312-742weak, the proud, in rich array.” MA feature things that our colleagues

INSIGHT

7638, or visit grantparkmusic festival.com

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

77

SUMMER STAGES

Out and About

John Stoops, Tim Evans, and Marc Grapey

Theater by the Lake A trio of Chicagoans bring a dose of drama to Harbor Country. by thomas connors

S

wimming, sailing, and sipping a perfectly chilled Chardonnay may be the order of the day in Michigan’s Harbor Country, but this summer destination isn’t without its cultural pleasures. Take the Three Oaks Theater Festival. Founded by Tim Evans, Northlight Theatre’s executive director; John Stoops, a former vice president at the ad agency Leo Burnett; and Marc Grapey, an actor and cofounder of Famous Door Theatre, the enterprise brings first-rate productions from Chicago to the village of Three Oaks, including the town’s charming Acorn Theater.

“Marc and I are homeowners, and Tim has spent summers in the area for many years,” says Stoops. “While it’s particularly well developed in the visual arts and music, there was not a great deal of professional A scene from theater. But we knew there was an audience that was ready Faith Healer in 2013. to support smart, engaging, professional theater.”

Last summer, the Three Oaks lineup included the MaryArrchie Theatre Co.’s production of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, TurnAround Theatre’s staging of Faith Healer by Brian Friel, and Complicated, a worldpremiere musical from the Chicago band Poi Dog Pondering. This season Stoops and his crew are importing Timeline Theatre’s production of Larry Kramer’s landmark AIDS drama The Normal Heart, Northlight Theater’s Jeff Award– winning production of the Woody Guthrie musical bio Woody Sez, and Blair Thomas & Company’s A Piano with Three Tales, a kid-friendly puppet show with music by Mussorgsky and Chopin.

“Though some might equate summer theater with lighthearted comedies and beloved musicals, we cast a wider net to also include challenging work that runs the gamut,” says Stoops. “Our audience is very sophisticated, and we know what they want and expect: engaging theater in all of its forms.” Three Oaks Theater Festival runs July 5–August 9 at the Acorn Theater and other venues.

107 Generations Dr., Three Oaks, MI, 269-756-3879; threeoaksfestival.com

78 michiganavemag.com

“All the world’s a stage” is more than just an expression for Redmoon Theater; it’s a mission. Acclaimed for its multimedia spectacles presented in unconventional venues, the Pilsen-based outfit is really letting loose this summer as it brings its boundary-breaking, audience-embracing aesthetic to the great outdoors with Summer Celebrations 2014. Exercising its cultural chops in the cause of civic responsibility and committed to serving the underserved, Redmoon engages with communities throughout the city by teaming with neighborhood organizations to enliven churches, parks, and schoolyards with music, dance, and art-making activities.

(Last summer’s event brought together local rappers, drummers, DJs, and more than 5,000 community members.) Wild and wonderful contraptions are a Redmoon hallmark, and this summer’s inventions include the Cyclone Grill, a pedal-powered carousel of nine Weber grills that turns cooking into performance art. Entertaining and empowering, Redmoon spices up the summer like nothing else. Various locations, May 31–September 7; redmoon.org Redmoon Theater’s Cyclone Grill.

photography by Charles Osgood (Faith Healer); Al Zayed (Redmoon)

This summer, Redmoon Theater takes it to the streets.

René Magritte. The Secret Double (Le Double secret) (detail), 1927. Centre Pompidou, Paris. Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de création industrielle. Purchase. © Charly Herscovici—ADAGP—ARS, 2014.

FACE LIFTS THE MYSTERY OF THE ORDINARY JUNE 24 - OCTOBER 13 2014

#unthink

National Sponsor:

Funding is generously provided by Helen and Sam Zell and the Auxiliary Board of the Art Institute, the Lead Affiliate Sponsor. Additional support is provided by Sylvia Neil and Daniel Fischel and the Prince Charitable Trusts. Annual support for exhibitions is provided by the Exhibitions Trust: Goldman Sachs, Kenneth and Anne Griffin, Thomas and Margot Pritzker, the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation, and the Woman’s Board of the Art Institute. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

this issue: summer savors

Rosette de Lyon, made with red wine, quatre éspice, garlic, and black pepper.

Tête-à-Tête “C

harcuterie ties back to an old way of eating that everyone used to be familiar with,” says Thomas Rice, partner and co-executive chef at the new West Loop dining hot spot Tête Charcuterie. Adds Kurt Guzowski, his partner and co-executive chef, “There’s a history and culture around it [that connects it] to Chicago and the rest of the world.”

This shared respect for the history and artisanal craft of charcuterie led these longtime friends and colleagues to open their Restaurant Row eatery, aiming to turn the city’s perception of charcuterie on its head, so to speak.

Rice and Guzowski met more than a decade ago while working at the fine-dining institution Courtright’s in Willow Springs, and the pair decided that after years of cooking in the res-

80 michiganavemag.com

taurants of others, they would open their own place, making charcuterie its focus. To that end, the menu offers all the traditional charcuterie, pâté, and fresh sausages one would expect from a restaurant whose moniker is inspired by the French classic fromage de tête, or head cheese.

Tête’s signature is a terrine composed of cooked and pressed pieces of meat from the head of a pig, set in aspic. It’s a dish that is serious business in France, where charcuterie chefs compete yearly in a fromage de tête competition. “It is our namesake, inspiration, and our house specialty,” says Guzowski.

It was Rice and Guzowski’s duck rillette, however, that attracted initial investor and now partner and general manager Daniel Goodman when he tested the dishes out at Taste of the

Nation. “I couldn’t stop going back for more,” jokes Goodman, whose fast friendship with the pair set the stage for the partnership that gave birth to Tête. “Cured sausages are the most recognizable part of charcuterie,” says Rice, “but pâtés and terrines are probably the most unique part of it…. The possibilities keep us thinking.”

The spot’s ever-changing roster of six to 10 terrines and pâtés (all made in-house) includes classics like rustic pâté de campagne and Torte du Canard aux Figues, but the team’s creativity shines brightest in the colorful, mosaiclike slices of poulet à la coriandre et gingembre, a chicken terrine made with pulled chicken, carrots, orange zest, piquillo peppers, black olives, and Catalonia spices. “It’s a whole Seville/ continued on page 82

photography by Jeff Kauck

Restaurant Row gets in touch with its carnivorous side with the new Parisian-inspired hot spot Tête Charcuterie. By Catherine De Orio

Before they gather around the table, they’ll gather around the range.

Every detail makes a statement. One oven for everyday cooking.

One extra-large-capacity oven that ensures that if the guest list doubles, you’ll be prepared. Both feature smooth-rolling fully extendable racks, making it easier to reach your latest masterpiece.

It’s time to dream bigger in the kitchen. Discover more at Monogram.com or visit the Monogram Design Center in Chicago.

MONOGRAM DESIGN CENTER | LuxeHome at the Merchandise Mart | 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza | Suite 124 | Chicago, IL 60654 | 312-832-2800

SO MANY DINNERS

continued from page 80 Catalonia-inspired kind of terrine,” says Rice. Global influences abound at Tête—composed dishes include fresh Filipino longanisa sausage paired with green garlic and dried shrimp fried rice, Fresno chili marmalade, and a custardlike coddled egg—but the seasonal, sustainable offerings are all locally sourced from Slagel Family Farm, Swan Creek, and Green City Market.

Lighter fare pops up on the menu as well, with dishes ranging from wild halibut and ricotta agnolotti to purple asparagus salad. “We are much more than a meatcentric restaurant,” says Rice. “It can’t be all meat, all the time.” To round out the meal, Tête offers a tempting sticky date sundae as well as a carefully curated list of approachable wines, local beers, and seasonal cocktails, including the tequila-fueled Three Amigos, whose name refers to Guzowski, Rice, and Goodman.

Tête’s European inspiration carries over into the John Kelly Architects –designed space, which seamlessly blends the history of the Randolph Street corridor’s meatpacking industry with that of French charcuteries and boucheries. “We wanted something representative of where we were,” Rice explains, adding that the red subway-tiled, glassenclosed “charcuterie room” is a modern take on the “storefronts we saw throughout Paris, the south of France, and Germany.” The polished mix of exposed brick walls, glazed concrete floors, and timber-lofted ceilings lends the airy space an industrial-chic vibe. Glass cases filled with hanging cured meats show off the final product, and the open floor plan provides the clientele—a mix of young families, professionals, and fashionable foodies—a voyeuristic peek into the kitchen, making them feel like part of the action. “We wanted everyone to hear the camaraderie in the kitchen—the expediting, the conversation between chefs and cooks,” says Rice.

In a city as passionate about meat as Chicago, it’s no surprise that Tête has found an enthusiastic audience for its creative, carnivore-friendly menu. Reflecting on the project’s success, Rice insists that the restaurant is just getting started. “We’re very happy with the direction we’re moving in,” he says, “and Tête is only going to get better.” Tête Charcuterie, 1114 W. Randolph St., 312-733-1178; tetechicago.com MA

82 michiganavemag.com

Can’t Miss Dish Tête’s longanisa spices up the menu with Filipino flair.

“When you stay true to the heritage of a dish, there is no manipulation necessary,” explains Tête partner and co-executive chef Thomas Rice of the street-food origins of the restaurant’s popular longanisa. The garlicky, chorizo-like Filipino sausage is composed of ground pork, soy, rice wine vinegar, and paprika and sits atop a bed of green garlic and dried shrimp fried rice. Finished with a delectably runny slow-poached egg, Fresno chili marmalade, and fresh lettuce and mint, it’s a dish as bold and spicy as it is colorful.

signature sip Balance your meal with the crisp, gingery Tête-à-Tête.

Tête’s cocktails rotate seasonally, but one libation that’s always available is the house specialty Tête-à-Tête. “The team loves it because its simple, clean flavors complement the menu,” says partner and general manager Daniel Goodman. Served tall, the heady blend of vodka, pâté spice, and ginger beer provides a refreshing, effervescent counterpoint to the restaurant’s signature savory meat dishes.

TÊTE-À-TÊTE 1 1⁄2 oz. vodka ¾ oz. lime ¾ oz. pâté spice simple (includes ginger, clove, nutmeg, and white pepper) Ginger beer Angostura bitters Lime wheel Fill tall glass with ice. Add vodka, lime, and spice, then roll drink from glass to shaker and back.

Top with ginger beer, float with bitters, and garnish with lime.

photography by Galdones Photography

above: Exposed brick walls and timber-lofted ceilings give Tête an industrial-chic vibe. left: Partner and co-executive chef Thomas Rice.

advertising

blue cheese stuffed olives pepperoncini peppers grape tomatoes a mini beef slider

ROCKIT

bacon strips

RANCH

blackened shrimp and more!

Dr. Feelgood, 32oz

THIS SUMMER AT THE RANCH

Bloody Mary now available all weekend at Rockit Bar & Grill

Tantalize your tastebuds during lunch, brunch and dinner at Bottlefork where you can enjoy the view from the new Street Bar or get a front row seat at the 40-foot long seamless kitchen and bar counter.

Have a festa six days a week at ÂĄAY CHIWOWA! Now open on Mondays, guests can savor the summer with delicious drinks featuring $6 glasses and $20 pitchers of authentic housemade Sangria.

Disrupt your week with EDW at the Underground.

Rockit Ranch has brought the electricity of EDM to the heart of River North with a new night and new music format Every. Damn. Wednesday.

Catching a Cubs game or a concert at Wrigley? With over 60 craft beers and 20+ gourmet burgers, Rockit Burger Bar is your

Experience seasonal

perfect pre- or post-game

ingredients kicked up a notch

spot, located just steps

with an Asian fair in Sunda’s

from Wrigley Field. Group

new refreshingly delicious

packages also available.

Watermelon Shisho cocktail.

Visit www.RockitRanch.com for details on all of our venues and to learn more about our private event packages.

110 W. Illinois

22 W. Hubbard

56 W. Illinois

3700 N. Clark

311 W. Chicago

441 N. Clark

so many dinners

SAUSAGE KINGS Two Chicago charcuterie masters reveal the craft behind the latest food frenzy.

below: A charcuterie board at Old Town Social. right: John Coletta

84 michiganavemag.com

Locally produced ciders from Virtue and Prima.

An Apple a Day FORGET ROSÉ. FOR WINDY CITY IMBIBERS, HARD CIDER IS THE OFFICIAL DRINK OF SUMMER. by sofia carlson

U

ntil recently, hard cider was dismissed as overly sweet and unrefined, but these days the beverage is all the rage in Chicago, among producers and bar owners alike. The recent second annual CiderCon at Navy Pier drew 3,000 attendees (double last year’s total), with brands from Stella Artois to Michigan’s Virtue Cider eager to showcase how varied hard ciders can be. “English ciders tend to be fruit-forward and have a lot of tannin in the finish,” says former Goose Island brewmaster Greg Hall, who founded Virtue in 2011. “French ciders tend to be a little softer and sweeter, and Spanish ciders are very refreshing and food-friendly.”

Cider can be an ideal complement to the lighter foods of the season, says Prima Cider founder Richard Bertsche, who enjoys pairing the libation with items like cheese and grilled pork chops. And for bartender Cristiana DeLucca of Bangers & Lace (1670 W. Division St., 773-252-6499; bangersandlacechicago.com), cider’s flavor profile makes it an excellent cocktail ingredient. “It can create the acidity you need or help balance sweetness,” she says, “so you can play around with that in your cocktail and create balance and texture.”

Few Chicagoans are counting on cider’s newfound popularity more than Cleetus Friedman of Fountainhead (1970 W. Montrose Ave., 773-697-8204; fountainheadchicago.com).

He is so taken with the stuff that it inspired his forthcoming cider pub, The Northman (4337 N. Lincoln Ave.), slated to open this summer. Centered on the cider regions of England and Normandy, the menu will feature more than 100 ciders on tap, as well as craft beers and whiskeys. “I’m really going to be focusing on creating an amazing menu, hands down, regardless of what you like to drink,” Friedman says. “I’m excited to be part of another movement, to really educate people and teach them [cider] is not what they think it is.” MA

photography by Galdones Photography (cider); old Town Social (charcuterie)

Jared Van Camp began his culinary career as a baker, but it wasn’t until he pursued his curiosity about sausage-making that he found his true calling as a chef.

“Charcuterie is what got me into cooking… before it was cool,” says the executive chef and partner in the restaurant group Element Collective, the team behind Old Town Social, Nellcôte, and Kinmont. When no one could answer his questions about making the stuff, he did the research and started creating charcuterie himself, eventually initiating a foodie frenzy over his homemade Toscano salami and spicy soppressata at Old Town Social (455 W. North Ave., 312-266-2277; oldtown social.com). Another early adopter was chef John Coletta, executive chef and cofounder of Quartino Ristorante & Wine Bar (626 N. State St., 312-698-5000; quartinochicago.com), a Chicago restaurant veteran who has been serving house-made salumi since day one. A dedicated ambassador of old-world traditions, he is the only chef in Chicago making artisanal meats cut by hand, like his spianata Romana, a blend of red wine– and Italian spice–cured pork shoulder and pork belly and fresh Italian sausage.

Coletta argues that hand-cutting lends flavor and texture to the final product.

“A good analogy,” he says, “is to think of steak tartare cut by hand versus one that has been ground.” Van Camp believes that handcrafted artisanal foods provide comfort during a time of head-spinning technological development, and Coletta agrees: “People crave those feelings of home that an artisan product provides.”

sound bites

Three’s Company Pair this mouthwatering blue cheese burger with an artisanal root beer at SpritzBurger, from Steve McDonagh, Gale Gand, and Dan Smith (below).

G

ale Gand made her name at the four-star restaurant Tru and is one of the nation’s most celebrated pastry chefs. Steve McDonagh and Dan Smith parlayed a victory in the Next Food Network Star competition into a booming business at Hearty. Now this culinary power trio has gone casual, joining forces to open the creative burger-and-soda concept SpritzBurger.

How did your collaboration come about?

Gale Gand: We have parallel lives: We write books, we do television, we have kids, and we’re trying to balance all that. [We met doing culinary events and hit it off,] then Dan and I started cooking together. We’d all go away for the weekend to their Michigan house and cook the whole time.

Dan Smith: A couple of years ago I started saying, “Hey, we should do a restaurant together.”

Steve McDonagh: Hearty had a great run, but after four years people want something different.

We thought this would be a way to get what [Dan

86 michiganavemag.com

“ Here you get a true cocktail and stay for dessert.”—Steve McDonagh and Gale] wanted creatively and spruce up what we were doing in the neighborhood already.

Why burgers?

SM: Every other time our regulars came in, they’d come for burgers. We started asking them

why, and they would say, “We need someplace in the neighborhood that’s a Tuesday or Wednesday kind of place.”

GG: There are families with young kids who need to be fed on a Thursday. If you stand here at five o’clock and you unlock the door, that’s who comes in. Then by 6:15 they’re home and we get the next wave of people.

SM: But we aren’t a kids’ restaurant. We’re in a gay neighborhood, too, and there’s a sophistication to our clientele that we need to address. Here you get a true cocktail with thought and history, and you stay for a [well-executed] dessert.

What are some of your favorites on the menu?

GG: My favorite appetizer is the chicken livers with roasted garlic balls.

DS: Me, too. I had a double order of it last night.

SM: I’m really liking the pub burger. We don’t do anything to the meat—we just add salt and pepper.

It’s grass-fed New Zealand beef, so it’s excellent.

What’s coming up for summer?

SM: I’m excited about the Spritz sodas. I want to feature Aperol—that’s going to be our summer drink.

GG: We have pear cider, and cider is one of my new favorite things. I also have my root beer on tap, which I’ve been making for decades now.

Gale, how are you approaching the desserts?

GG: How I approach most things, which is “What came before it and what may diners need afterward to uplift them?”

That’s the job of the pastry chef.

DS: My favorite is the lemon meringue pie. It’s pretty on the plate, and the idea of freezing the lemon curd is brilliant.

GG: These are casual desserts; I’m not asking you to eat smoked chocolate. It’s more fun-feeding.

What has the response been since you switched the Hearty space over to Spritz?

DS: I tease Gale all the time at five o’clock: “This is the day no one is going to come in.” But all our Hearty regulars are still our regulars, plus there’s all the other people who are coming in now, too.

So it’s been overwhelmingly positive. 3819 N. Broadway, 773-868-9866; spritzburger.com MA

photography by Jess Dawson

Hearty Boys Steve McDonagh and Dan Smith team with star pastry chef Gale Gand to build a better burger joint. by j.p. anderson

primoclassico.com

Featuring exquisite cuisine From chicagoland’s Finest purveyors

spirits sponsor

proceeds beneFit

media sponsor

The Primo Center for Women and Children is a highly regarded non-proft servicing the critical transitional and permanent housing needs of Chicago-area homeless families. primocenter.org

guided tour

Feast for the Eyes THE VIEWS ARE AS STUNNING AS THE CUISINE AT THESE SCENIC LOCAL SPOTS. by meg mathis

S

ummertime in Chicago is appealing from nearly every direction, but the sights are often sweeter 1,000 feet above the city streets—something that Nichole Williamson has learned firsthand at the John Hancock Center.

As 360 Chicago’s general manager, she oversaw the 17,000-square-foot space’s recent multimillion-dollar transformation, including the ambitious construction of Tilt (875 N. Michigan Ave., 94th Fl.; 360chicago.com), a first-of-its-kind attraction that allows visitors to hover over the Mag Mile at a 30-degree angle. Williamson never tires of a fantastic vantage point, and when she’s not defying gravity 94 stories above Michigan Avenue, she’s enjoying the views at these local dining destinations.

The Gage

“The fish-and-chips is probably the best in the city, and they have an excellent beer selection. My favorite thing there is actually the lobster roll. Our CEO is from Paris, and he’s become absolutely addicted to the fishand-chips. I took him there this past week for lunch, and we sat at the windows so we could watch the park and everybody going by.”

24 S. Michigan Ave., 312-372-4243; thegagechicago.com

The J. Parker

“My husband loves the burger, but we also try to just go there and get a cocktail and split a salad. They have a great Midwestern cheese plate, and it’s spectacular sitting directly above Lincoln Park looking out across the tree line and North Avenue Beach.”

1816 N. Clark St., 13th Fl., 312-254-4747; jparkerchicago.com

88 michiganavemag.com

NoMI Kitchen

“The terrace is beautiful, but I love sitting along those front windows in the dining room: You’ve got the John Hancock building, the Water Tower, and you can watch horse-drawn carriages going by. The sushi is fabulous—they have a great hamachi, and the spicy tuna is excellent.”

Park Hyatt Chicago, 800 N. Michigan Ave., 7th Fl., 312-239-4030; hyatt.com/gallery/nomi

The Terrace at Trump

“The Terrace is truly unique in the city: At 16 stories, you’re high enough that you get these beautiful, expansive views, but you’re close enough that you still get the sense of energy from the street. I typically order from the appetizer

menu—they’ve got excellent small bites that everybody will share.”

Trump International Hotel & Tower, 401 N. Wabash Ave., 312-588-8600; sixteenchicago.com

Terzo Piano

“The food is excellent, and the outdoor space, with views of Millennium Park looking down on Michigan Avenue, is really stunning.

It’s a great place to get away from the bustle and sit above [the crowds], enjoy a glass of Champagne, take in the views of the park, relax, and enjoy a nice Saturday or Sunday brunch.”

159 E. Monroe St., 312-443-8650; terzopianochicago.com MA

photography by Chris Salata (Trump); Eric Kleinberg (J. Parker); Chris Ocken (Williamson)

above: The Terrace at Trump is an ideal spot to view the fireworks at Navy Pier, every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the summer. left: The patio of The J. Parker. below: Nichole Williamson

on the town

media mates What: Cocktails and conversation over lunch.

When: The buzzing noon hour on a recent spring Tuesday.

Where: Brad Thor’s preferred corner booth at RL, 115 E. Chicago Ave., 312-475-1100; rlrestaurant.com

Longtime friends Bruce Wolf and Brad Thor (left) trade quips over a decadent lunch at RL (top), which includes a savory lobster roll sandwich (above).

The Write Stuff B

rad Thor and Bruce Wolf are an unlikely pair—Thor speaks with the earnest intensity of a character in one of the espionage thrillers that have made him famous, while Wolf is a wisecracking TV and radio veteran always ready with a punch line—but the duo’s common Chicago upbringing and shared worldview have forged between them a fast friendship. As Thor looks ahead to the release of his latest Scot Harvath novel, the two born-and-bred Chicagoans share a laugh-filled lunch at RL while talking books, bloody bulls, and being raised in the Windy City.

How do you two know each other?

Brad Thor: I was a fan of Bruce’s back when he was with Jonathon Brandmeier here [at WLUP], and we met when I was on a book tour. My publicist had booked me on your show, and we hit it off.

Why do you think there’s a connection between you two?

BT: The eyes. [Laughs] No, I love Bruce’s sense of humor and I always have; I used to listen to him in high school and college. We can talk about politics and all that, but we always find the laugh in it. And I’ve always believed the shortest distance between two people really is a good laugh.

90 michiganavemag.com

The waiter arrives.

BT: I’m going to have a bloody bull.

Bruce Wolf: What is that? I don’t even know what that is.

BT: It’s a Bloody Mary with beef bouillon. It’s great for your cholesterol.

BW: Make it two.

Brad, you suggested that we meet here. Why is RL a favorite of yours?

BT: There was nothing like it in Chicago. The décor is so cool—it was Ralph Lauren’s first attempt at a restaurant. The food’s fantastic, the service is awesome, and it’s become like a second home.

What’s your typical order?

BT: I get the short ribs in succotash. It’s fantastic. It’s a tough dish to cook and it’s always perfect. The lobster club is also good.

BW: I’m going to have that.

The bloody bull cocktails are presented.

BT: Ah, look at that. Bruce, if this turns into a problem for you, I’ll pay your deposit at Betty Ford, since I’m the guy who’s going to get you hooked continued on page 92

photography by Galdones Photography

over lunch at RL, Best-selling author Brad Thor and WLS radio broadcaster Bruce Wolf raise a glass to the release of Thor’s 14th novel, Act of War. by j.p. anderson

on the town right: Bruce Wolf and Brad Thor both have deep roots in Chicago. below: The masculine décor at RL is a perfect backdrop for their drink of choice, the beef bouillon-infused bloody bull.

92 michiganavemag.com

“ Everyone should be doing lunches like this—get a cocktail or two and talk.”

—brad thor

bloody bull 46 oz. tomato juice 6 oz. fresh lemon juice 4 oz. Worcestershire 2 oz. Tabasco 1 tsp. crushed red chili flakes 1 ⁄2 tbsp. ground black pepper 2 tbsp. celery salt 4 oz. horseradish 2 1⁄2 oz. vodka (per cocktail) 1 ⁄2 oz. beef bouillon (per cocktail) Garnish: Lemon wedge, cornichon, blue cheese–stuffed olive Make a batch by combining the first eight ingredients in a large pitcher, stirring with a whisk, and tasting and seasoning as necessary.

For each serving, add vodka and beef stock to an ice-filled Collins glass, top with the mixture, and garnish.

down at a restaurant you like, and talk.

BW: Tomorrow I can go back to my Nutrisystems.

BT: Do you need me to total up the points for today? Because when you’re here the calories don’t stay with you. The minute you walk out the door, they’re gone. That’s the magic of RL. MA

photography by Galdones Photography

continued from page 90 on bloody bulls.

BW: It looks so healthy with this shish kebab of condiments. By the way, I’m so enjoying this interview because— BT: I’m doing all the talking?

Laughter.

Brad, your new book Act of War comes out July 8th—give us a preview.

BT: I challenge myself to get better with each book I do. So my goal is to stretch myself, and with Act of War there is a secret plot element. I actually found something that we’ve overlooked as a nation, which is a big national security issue, and that’s the secret that readers will get when they read Act of War. The plot was heavily influenced by two books I read, and both of them have a Chicago connection.

BW: I understand the influence of books, but what makes it stretching yourself?

BT: Because I got even more in-depth into the characters than I’ve ever done before. I want to put the readers into the shoes of a group of special operations guys, not only for the gun stuff, but also for the intellectual stuff and the emotional stuff. I really want this to be a book that everybody is talking about.

You’re both Chicagoans born and raised?

BT: Yes, I am.

BW: Born on the West Side, but I grew up in Skokie.

Entrées of lobster roll and short ribs with succotash arrive.

How has the city influenced your work?

BT: I will always be a Chicago guy through and through, even though I’m actually moving down to Nashville. I love this city, and it’s had a tremendous influence on how I write and how I see the world. It’s a good work ethic, loyalty, honesty, and integrity. That’s what Chicago means to me.

[Pause] Top that, Wolf.

BW: The thing is, I’ve never lived anywhere else, so I have no idea how it has affected me. I’m sure I’m through and through Chicagoan, but how would I know? [NBC5 anchor] Allison Rosati once told me, “You should be here because you are Chicago.” I grew up here, I loved the teams… it’s who I am.

How is the lobster roll?

BW: I hate to sound cliché here, but it looks too good to eat. Just don’t let my rabbi see this.

Are the short ribs as good as you remember?

BT: They’re fantastic. The meat falls off the bone, and look at how colorful that succotash is—plenty of butter, just the way I like it. People in Chicago eat very well, and we have an abundance of fantastic restaurants. We’re blessed.

Brad, do you have a particular writing routine that you stick to?

BT: Someone once said that successful writing is all about applying seat of pants to seat of chair, and that’s very true. When I’m working on a book, I treat it like a regular job, Monday through Friday, because I’m a dad and a husband. It’s 2,500 words a day, and when that’s complete, I’m done.

BW: Then you go out with your butterfly net and catch butterflies.

BT: And there you go.

Final thoughts on the meal?

BT: Everybody should be doing lunches like this: Get a cocktail or two, sit

LIVE AMONGST ART WITH MICHIGAN AVENUE’S COMMISSIONED PETER MAX CUSTOM COVER ONE ORIGINAL PAINTING OF THE ARTWORK IS AVAILABLE ALL NET PROCEEDS WILL BENEFIT THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES. VISIT CHARITYBUZZ.COM/NICHEMEDIA AND PLACE YOUR BID. AUCTION OPEN JUNE 3 — AUGUST 6.

The iconic artist Peter Max embraces the spirit of Chicago to create a colorful cover reflecting a landscape in his vibrant, cosmic style. Through a special partnership between Michigan Avenue and Peter Max, one one-of-a-kind, original artwork of Michigan Avenue’s Summer cover will be auctioned on Charitybuzz to benefit The Humane Society of the United States.

This unity celebrates Peter Max’s prolific contribution to the world of art spanning generations, and commemorates the 60th anniversary of The Humane Society of the United States.

This special, one-of-a-kind, 20” x 24” hand-embellished work on paper was commissioned exclusively for Michigan Avenue magazine’s Summer cover.

In addition, with a $250 donation to The Humane Society of the United States, you can enjoy a limited-edition 18”x 24” poster of the Summer Michigan Avenue cover, plate signed by Peter Max.

Only 25 limited-edition posters of the special, custom-created cover art are available on: www.humanesociety.org/petermaxart

All Art © Peter Max 2014

AN EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PREVIEW OF OUR OTHER CITIES’ COVER ARTWORK BY PETER MAX

NICHE MEDIA ASPEN PEAK | AUSTIN WAY | BOSTON COMMON | CAPITOL FILE | GOTHAM | HAMPTONS | LOS ANGELES CONFIDENTIAL MICHIGAN AVENUE | OCEAN DRIVE | PHILADELPHIA ST YLE | VEGAS

96  michiganavemag.com

photography by tk; illustration by tk

Pamella Roland offers simplicity, sophistication, and sex appeal to women of all generations.

reasures

TASTEMAKER

Perfectly Pamella CHICAGO DESIGNER PAMELLA ROLAND PUTS HER CHIC STAMP ON THE CITY WITH THE RELEASE OF HER NEW LINE, PAMELLA, PAMELLA ROLAND. BY JULIET IZON

A

s a child, Pamella Roland adored watching her mother dress in glamorous gowns before an evening out. But in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, becoming a fashion designer was certainly not a well-trodden career path. “I’ve always loved fashion,” Roland says. “But I never dreamed when I started that [the line] would go anywhere.”

Since launching her label Pamella Roland in 2002, though, her dresses have found favor with celebrities like Kristen Bell, Jennifer Hudson, and Julianna Margulies, as well as women of all ages seeking a timeless and elegant look. Roland’s latest venture is Pamella, Pamella Roland, a diffusion line of cocktail and black-tie dresses priced between $500 and $1,000. “It was something that was needed and that a lot of people asked for,” Roland says. Two of her most-loved materials, jacquard and chiffon, are featured in this collection of nearly 30 pieces. “We use basically the same fabrics that we use in our high line, only less expensive [versions].”

While her gowns are acclaimed for their intricate prints, Roland also credits her success to the designs’ ability to bridge generations. “We dress the mothers, the daughters, and the grandmothers,” she says. “It’s a classic style—dresses that are very sexy but not too sexy.”

Roland and her husband, Dan DeVos, split their time between Grand Rapids and their home in River North (“Chicago will always be my favorite city,” says the designer). She finds that her clothes are perfectly suited for sophisticated Chicago women. The women here “are really chic. I compare them a little bit to New York, [but] they aren’t afraid of color like New Yorkers are,” she says with a laugh. The mother of three also prides herself on designs that are uncomplicated: “If you can’t figure out how to put it on, forget it. What we have with our dresses are beautiful fabrics—easy to wear, and yet they’re beautiful. A Chicago woman likes that idea.” Neiman Marcus, 737 N. Michigan Ave., 312-6425900; neimanmarcus.com MA

“Chicago women are really chic but aren’t afraid of color like New Yorkers are.”

—PAMELLA ROLAND

LEFT:

Roland with her husband, Dan; their son; and their two daughters—her first models. RIGHT: Gazaar party dress ($700).

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

97

style spotlight

Urban Outfitter Minutes away from Oak Street Beach, Tommy Bahama stocks the essentials for a carefree season.

Chicagoans are experts at taking advantage of summer in the city, and this year Tommy Bahama is bringing its carefree style to Chicago’s favorite season. The brand has partnered with the Chicago Park District to become the official outfitter of the lakefront’s more than 400 lifeguards. Infusing Chicago’s metropolitan sensibility with Tommy Bahama’s island spirit are a variety of swimwear options, including one of the largest print offerings in menswear.

The slightly shorter trunk length, combined with the label’s hot tropical prints, brings the season’s runway styles straight to the beach.

Also available are accessories, rash guards, chairs, coolers, beach games, and sports equipment to help make your summer as special as possible—cocktails not included. 520 N. Michigan Ave., 2nd Fl., 312-644-8388; tommybahama.com

The Shops at North Bridge store is one of four local Tommy Bahama locations.

98 michiganavemag.com

Bashford duffel bags, Tumi ($695–$895).

Carry On With a newly appointed creative director and a revamped Michigan Avenue store, Tumi is taking flight in Chicago.

With his eponymous line of bespoke shoes, George Esquivel has long been renowned as a leather artisan and shoe master, and now he’s bringing his craftsmanship and discerning eye for fashion to Tumi, which recently appointed him creative director while strengthening its presence in the Windy City with a redesigned Michigan Avenue outpost. Esquivel’s aesthetic of simple elegance fits right in at the luggage giant. “I wanted to take the function and high-quality materials that Tumi already used and elevate the design to create pieces that are both stylish and sophisticated,” he says, a philosophy expressed in the new Bashford duffel, available in linen, asphalt leather, and bridle leather and suited for both city and country life.

The revamped Mag Mile boutique, designed by the award-winning Dror Benshetrit, features walnut and metal finishes and now boasts an on-the-spot monogramming station. Complementing this sleek new look is the brand’s Santa Monica collection of bags in nine signature styles—a series that, Esquivel says, “demonstrates beauty in simplicity.”

Unusual details such as X’s, knotted leather ties, and burnished leather luggage tags add to the bags’ lived-in appearance and effortless flair.

645 N. Michigan Ave., 312-787-3096; tumi.com MA

Uncover the Difference.

Treat yourself to a bra that feels like it was custom made for you. For a complimentary fitting, visit the Jockey® bra store at Woodfield Mall or learn more at jockeybra.com.

Julia is the winner of the “Mario, Make Me a Model” contest. ©2014 Jockey International, Inc. All rights reserved. Jockey is a trademark of Jockey International, Inc.

made here Jen Gerenraich (far right) lured her friend Lori Wallis out of retirement to collaborate on their new luxury leather label.

Ladies’ Line Lori Wallis and Jen Gerenraich launch a new made-in-Chicago label with JGEREN.

A

100 michiganavemag.com

Chicago into the fashion capital of the Midwest.

How else do the bags reflect Chicago?

JG: Our Hudson bag was the first, and it refers to the street we live on. The Sheridan is the North Shore—it’s a much more ladylike bag. Each bag has its own uniqueness. The Chicago woman who knows the streets gets it.

What’s new this summer for JGeren?

LW: There’s a new leather woven backpack. It’s got a lot of brass rivets on it. It’s a really funky bag. Also, we’ll have some accessories that feature fringe—we call it the Fifty Shades of Fringe.

They’re very sexy. There are fringe leather cuffs, chokers, and ankle cuffs.

By appointment, 1440 N. Kingsbury St., No. 120, 888-609-2421; jgeren.com MA

“We want to build Chicago into the fashion capital of the Midwest.”

The Sheridan, JGeren ($1,295).

—lori wallis

photography by Jason Little

s neighbors in Old Town, Lori Wallis and Jen Gerenraich were introduced by their 13-year-old sons, and now the friends are collaborating on a new leather line, JGeren. By focusing on quality leather and representing Chicago in every aspect of their pieces, the ladies of JGeren are earning the respect of not only their local community but the greater fashion industry. “It’s not just about the bags,” says Gerenraich. “It’s about keeping our luxury level to a certain degree and teaching people that it exists.”

How did the idea for a handbag line come together?

Lori Wallis: I have been in the fashion industry for 25 years. Jen had always been making wonderful handmade bags, and it got to a point where she couldn’t make them all by herself.

She kept asking if she could get me out of retirement. I said to Jen, “If we do it, it can’t be a made-at-home kind of look.” From that moment on, it’s been full steam ahead.

What is the design and production process like?

Jen Gerenraich: Once there’s a design for a bag, we work directly with the tannery, where we literally have them make the leather for the bag. We know the exact pigment, the weight, the sheen, every aspect of how the bag is shaped.

Then we go to the factory and go over the design and the extra little details, like the hand lacing, which is our signature feature. Hand lacing has to be done in a specific way. There’s no way to rush it.

How is JGeren sustainable?

LW: Our sustainability is Chicago. We found the tannery, we found the factories here, and we are going to keep it in Chicago. We want to build

BENEFITING THE CHICAGO HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS (CHIARTS) FOR TICKETS VISIT SKENDERFOUNDATION.ORG OR CALL 312.994.3800

MEDIA SPONSORSHIP BY

secret city

Wicker Park Whimsy Bohemia blooms in Asrai Garden, Elizabeth Cronin’s lush oasis on North Avenue. by meg mathis

B

eneath a black-and-white-striped awning, a rainbow of flowers beckons North Avenue passersby from Asrai Garden’s front window, where fresh blossoms are organized by color in rows of gleaming vases. Inside the wit-and-whimsy-filled space, foliage hangs from the ceiling and spills out to the sidewalk, where owner Elizabeth Cronin has just added spring flowers to the outdoor planter on this sunny Wednesday morning.

“I hated gardening when I was young,” says Cronin, her eyes widening as she rests her tattooed arms against Asrai Garden’s counter. “Hated it.” Growing up in Edison Park, she explains, she was often tasked with helping her mom weed their sizable garden. “I always told her, ‘When I get older, I’m going to live in a house with all cement. There’s going to be no flowers to take care of.’” continued on page 104

photography by Jason Little

Asrai Garden’s flowers are kept in the open and sorted by color, while its bouquets are arranged to have a natural feel.

102 michiganavemag.com

secret city This year Elizabeth Cronin (right) has vowed to stock her shop (below) only with things “I want to be around every day.”

“Wicker Park’s my home. I walk out the front door and see 10 people I know before I’ve reached the corner.”

continued from page 102 But these days find Cronin taking care of plenty of flowers at Asrai Garden, where she prepares deliveries of fresh, natural flora for both everyday and special events, like weddings and Obama fundraisers. She opened the boutique in the Coyote Building at Wicker Park’s six corners at the age of 23 (“It was the ’90s, and they were giving out loans to people like crazy,” says Cronin, an environmental science dropout who discovered she enjoyed working with florists). Following a rent increase in the early aughts, she moved Asrai Garden to its current location, in a nook of North and Winchester Avenues. “People will walk by and say, ‘Oh my God, we finally have a florist over here? When did you open?’ I’m like, ‘1999?’” she deadpans. She has a soft spot for this neighborhood, which is where her parents first met. “It’s my home,” says Cronin, a resident of the South Side neighborhood Brighton Park. “I walk out the front door [of Asrai Garden] and I see 10 people I know before I’ve reached the corner.” She considers many customers family.

For example: “I have a client who sends me to his house in Mexico for vacation every year, and I have clients who, when they moved to New York for three years, flew me out to do their container gardening on their balcony—like there’s not a florist in New York.” She chuckles while The Cure’s “Lovesong” buzzes in the background.

Cronin describes her boutique as “the everything-I-likein-one-place store.” An eclectic assortment of antique mirrors

104 michiganavemag.com

lines one of the slate-colored walls, reflecting the shop’s array of products, including Fresh Cut Gardenia candles from Lafco, candycolored soaps, and $12 wild pheasant feathers displayed in a Mason jar. Forage Haberdashery ties (“Handmade in Philadelphia” reads a sign written in loopy cursive) and handpainted linen scarves by the Chicago-based brand Wanderlustings are arranged above jewelry cases holding pieces such as a 1945 skull signet ring by local designer Knot & Splice. “I literally have six or seven super-local girls—in Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Wicker Park—making jewelry right now,” says Cronin, who has found herself sourcing more Chicago-made merchandise of late. “It’s the year of going with my gut—really only carrying the things that I want to see in my home, that I want to be around every day. We bought nothing this year that was ‘I’m buying this ’cause I should.’ We only bought things that we were totally bananas for.”

And if there’s one thing Cronin is wild about, it’s flowers. As someone whose dream is to take her staff of six to Amsterdam’s Aalsmeer Flower Auction (“It’s not some sweet girl with braids frolicking through a tulip field,” she says with a laugh. “It’s actually very much like the stock exchange—people throwing hand signs and yelling and bidding on things”), she’s smitten with this season’s yarrows and dahlias from growers in Michigan, not to mention her most beloved of blooms, hellebores and ranunculi. “I just never get sick of them,” she says. “Even if I know I’m buying four times as many as we’ll sell, I can’t stop buying them. I hoard them.” 1935 W. North Ave., 773-782-0680; asraigarden.com MA

photography by Jason Little; illustration by sara franklin

—elizabeth cronin

ikram’s it list

Cuff links, David Thomas (price on request).

Gentleman’s Choice “D

Ikram Goldman

106 michiganavemag.com

avid Thomas is an amazing celebrity fashion stylist based in LA. He came to a dinner I was hosting for my friend Hamish Bowles, who was in town for a Chicago Costume Council event, and we immediately hit it off. He was wearing these beautiful pins, and I said, ‘These are amazing—what are they?’ When he told me he designs them, I said, ‘We have to have them.’ While we were in the process of talking about getting them in the store, he called me to say that Boy George had just done a video featuring his collection and he wanted to premiere the video at Ikram. So we just hosted a fun dance party at the store with David and Boy George, and it was an incredible way to showcase the video and introduce David’s collection.

“What I love about David’s jewelry—he does a variety of cuff links, buttons, and pins—is that it’s so unusual. The only other time I’ve seen men’s jewelry encrusted in diamonds and loved it, it was vintage. There’s something very old-school about the way his collection looks, but it’s also very modern. It’s a wonderful take on a luxury accessory for gentlemen that doesn’t look bejeweled or silly.

“My favorite pieces are the buttons: white-gold buttons with diamonds along the edges. It’s a gentlemen’s line, but these pieces are absolutely not just for men—there’s no question that a woman can wear those diamond-encrusted buttons. We have them in the store right now, and I literally love them more than anything.” Prices on request. Ikram, 15 E. Huron St., 312-587-1000; ikram.com MA

photography by beth owen (cuff links); Maria Ponce Berre (Goldman)

With his new jewelry collection, Gentleman, celebrity stylist David Thomas proves that diamonds can be a man’s best friend. by ikram goldman

social network

Close to Home As she debuts a chic new porcelain collection, designer Alessandra Branca shares her favorite places for living a well-styled life. by meg mathis

A Chicagoan by way of Rome, Alessandra Branca has made a name for herself by infusing charm and color (like her signature red) into clients’ homes. This summer she is also basking in the praise for her new line of pink and blue porcelain tabletop pieces, like her Fiamma china, a modern take on an 18th-century Meissen plate. “I wanted dishes that could go from kitchen to dining room and that you can dress up or down, just like we do an outfit,” says Branca. When not at work in her Gold Coast studio (5 E. Goethe St., 312-787-6123; branca.com), she finds inspiration in these, her favorite city spots.

“A day at the spa is really important for your body and your head. The service at The Peninsula Spa (108 E. Superior St., 312-573-6860; chicago.peninsula.com) is fantastic. Their people are top, top-drawer, and it’s a pleasure to be in a beautifully organized space. I usually get facials and massages. I like the idea that you can detox.

“As a European, I look for quality of service and quality of goods. The Bottega Veneta store here (800 N. Michigan Ave., 312-664-3220; bottegaveneta.com) is incredible. I go to their stores all over the world, and the one in Chicago is fantastically run and beautifully done.

“I love going to Terzo Piano (159 E. Monroe St., 312-443-8650; terzopianochicago.com) because I love any excuse to visit the Art Institute of Chicago (111 S. Michigan Ave., 312-443-3600; artic.edu). I adore all the 18th-century porcelains, and of course the American furniture is to die for— Marshall Field’s 19th-century American classics are incredible.

“There’s a place for makeup called Arch Apothecary (1359 N. Wells St., 312-291-9750; archapothecary.com) that is wonderful. I buy lots of my facial products there. They carry all sorts of small companies— they’re not names that you’re used to seeing. I am not particularly label-driven; if the quality is up to snuff and they deliver service, it’s perfect.” MA

108 michiganavemag.com

top left: Alessandra Branca. top right: Nero Rosa sandals, Bottega Veneta ($830). above: The Peninsula Spa pool. right: Sunday Riley’s Good Genes Treatment from Arch Apothecary.

photography by Kana Okada (Branca); Derek Richmond (Nico)

“Nico Osteria (1015 N. Rush St., 312-994-7100; nicoosteria.com) is a well-done restaurant. I like the carbonara, which is great brunch food on a Sunday. I also love going to Longman & Eagle (2657 N. Kedzie Ave., 773-276-7110; longmanandeagle.com). I enjoy the informality of it. They change their menus often, although they always have things like sausages, and their salads are great.

21eCedarSt.KoenigRublof.com

2430nLakeviewAve56S.com

1837nWinchesterAve.KoenigRublof.com

19000-128thSt.com

MARY BENNETT | 312.893.3551 $5,000,000

M. MCNALLY & C. GIBSON FAY | 312.944.8900 $4,300,000

MONIQUE PIERON | 312.268.0747 $3,700,000

KAY FELDMAR | 847.557.1626 $2,990,000-$6,500,00

From a name that is the most respected and admired throughout the world, our real estate experts raise the bar for the luxury home market and redefine the art of fine living.

Why trust the purchase or sale of a luxury home to anyone else?

KoenigRubloffLuxuryCollection.com

74eElm.KoenigRublof.com

800nMichigan3601.KoenigRublof.com

419wOakdaleAve.com

42eElmSt.KoenigRublof.com

SHARON SWEENEY | 312.368.5345 $3,500,000

ROBYN BROOKS | 312.264.1249 $3,300,000

NATASHA MOTEV | 312.475.4200 $3,295,000

GAYLE TEPPER | 312.368.5959 $2,750,000

2132nKenmoreAve.KoenigRublof.com

1040nLakeShore7A.KoenigRublof.com

4013-09GrandAve.KoenigRublof.com

2140wCortlandSt.com

NATASHA MOTEV | 312.475.4200 $2,690,000

NANCY NUGENT | 312.264.1271 $2,685,000

DIANA IVAS | 630.325.5555 $2,599,000

RANDIE SHAPIRO | 312.893.8109 $2,595,000

401eNorthWaterStTH19.KoenigRublof.com

2825nPineGroveAve.KoenigRublof.com

600nLakeShore612.KoenigRublof.com

832wWolframSt.KoenigRublof.com

MARY ANN GENELLIE | 773.572.4447 $2,099,000

EILEEN BRENNAN | 312.909.5388 $1,950,000

MONIQUE CROSSAN | 312.893.8104 $1,565,000

NANCY A. HEARON | 312.953.5076 $799,900

time honored

SplitSecond Style at work and at play, Chicago fans of form and function will find the ideal accompaniment to summer’s outdoor activities in the season’s new chronographs. by roberta naas

A

mong the most popular timepieces on the market, chronographs—watches that track intervals of time—made a strong showing at this year’s Swiss watch shows, as the world’s finest watch brands took them to new heights. While these timing instruments are synonymous with sports, their styling has become so sophisticated that they’re also a staple in the office and around town. Timing anything from a morning run along the lakefront to back-to-back meetings in the C-suite, chronographs make a powerful statement. For more watch features and expanded coverage, go to michiganavemag.com/watches. MA

This all-new Montblanc Homage to Nicolas Rieussec watch ($11,500) honors the man who created the chronograph style. A monopusher chronograph with Super-LumiNova-coated numerals and two enamel disks for the chronograph counters, the watch also indicates the time in a second time zone. Marshall Pierce & Company, 29 E. Madison St., 312-372-2415; montblanc.com From TAG Heuer, this Carrera 1887 watch ($6,400) features a shimmering blue dial and is equipped with the 1887 movement, created in-house.

C.D. Peacock, 172 Oakbrook Center, 630-571-5355; tagheuer.com From Hamilton, this 42mm Jazzmaster Auto Chrono watch ($1,995) is crafted in stainless steel with a gold PVD finish and houses the H21 automatic movement with 60 hours of power reserve.

Rogers & Hollands Jewelers, 835 N. Michigan Ave., 312-944-4300; hamiltonwatch.com

110 michiganavemag.com

photography by Jeff Crawford; styling by Terry Lewis

from top:

Go ahead, be fabulous.

Just protect yourself.

When you’re out in the sun be sure to protect your skin. Shade, sunscreen, and a cover-up can go a long way to helping your natural beauty shine through.

Go with your own glow™ SkinCancer.org

Follow us on ©2012 The Skin Cancer Foundation Campaign created in cooperation with Laughlin Constable, laughlin.com

THE WORLD’S MOST EXCLUSIVE PROPERTIES UNDER ONE ADDRESS Coldwell Banker Previews International® website traffc climbed over 30%* last year - a sign that more and more affuent consumers recognize and seek out Previews® to fnd their next luxury home.

With over 8000 luxury listings worldwide, is your new address somewhere in ours?

Global Is The Difference Africa North America Central America South America Asia Australia Caribbean Europe Middle East

ColdwellBankerPreviews.com ©2014 Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate LLC. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Operated by a subsidiary of NRT LLC. Coldwell Banker, the Coldwell Banker Logo, Coldwell Banker Previews International and the Coldwell Banker Previews International logo are registered and unregistered service marks owned by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Real estate agents afliated with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. *Source Coldwell Banker 2013 quotables

ColdwellBankerPreviews.Com

LAKE FOREST

$5,950,000

LAKE FOREST

$3,995,000

KENILWORTH

$3,200,000

WINNETKA

$3,200,000

Unparalleled luxury defines this magnifcent newer 10 bedroom, 11.2 bath estate in east Lake Forest.

This vintage estate home on 1.8 acres was renovated and expanded to perfection. www.1401GreenBay.com

Exciting new luxury home in prime location. Ready to customize for your family. Warmth and elegance.

Luxury 2014 home 1 block to lake.

Traditional lines and modern amenities ready for your custom touch.

Tom Glusic Ann Lyon

Jean Royster Annie Lenzke

Julie Dowdle Rogers

Julie Dowdle Rogers

NORTHBROOK

847-573-1142 847-828-9991

$2,780,000

LINCOLN PARK

847-219-5747 847-414-4045

$2,700,000

GOLD COAST

847-401-4005

$2,295,000

GLENCOE

847-401-4005

$1,875,000

Never leave home again, perfection abounds at exquisite residence with frst foor master suite.

Magnificent, 5,400 square foot, 6 bedroom home with exquisite fnishes, an elevator and 2 car garage.

Recently renovated Benjamin Marshall co-op, unit 6B, with spectacular North and East views. 3 bedrooms, 2.2 baths.

Enjoy fabulous lake views from the perfect newer home with flexible foorplan for today’s lifestyle.

Gloria Matlin

Jill Peet Saponaro

Ann George

Gloria Matlin

HIGHLAND PARK

847-951-4040

$1,799,000

GLENCOE

773-562-4006

$1,549,000

WHEATON

847-989-8012

$1,399,000

LINCOLN PARK

847-951-4040

$975,000

Exquisite newer residence with 3 levels overlooking private ravine with bright open foor plan.

Enjoy easy living in the heart of town.

Sunny, newer custom built home with open foor plan!

Resort living! Stunning 5 bedroom home on private 1.1 acres, pool, screened porch, sun room, 4 car garage.

Renovated 3 bedroom rowhome in Embassy Club features a stunning kitchen and 2 car garage. Beautiful!

Gloria Matlin

Gloria Matlin

Lisa Hassen Field

Jill Peet Saponaro

847-951-4040

847-951-4040

630-202-9221

773-562-4006

Knowledge Is The dIfference ©2014 Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate LLC. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Operated by a subsidiary of NRT LLC. Coldwell Banker, the Coldwell Banker Logo, Coldwell Banker Previews International, the Coldwell Banker Previews International logo and “Dedicated to Luxury Real Estate” are registered and unregistered service marks owned by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Real estate agents affliated with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.

L fe

to the

MAX O

ne of the most prolific artists working today, Peter Max is widely known for his “cosmic style,” with creations that have been seen everywhere from the hull of Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Breakaway to a Continental Airlines Boeing 777 fuselage, and the massive stages of the 1999 Woodstock music festival. His mixed-media works can be found in the collections of six past US presidents, while his art—recognizable for its energetic brushstrokes of primary colors and psychedelic panoramas of stars, planets, profiles, and icons from Lady Liberty to Marilyn Monroe—has been used to represent five Super Bowls, the World Cup, the World Series, the US Open, the Grammys, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I’m just very happy to be in the middle of all this,” says Max of his many noteworthy accomplishments. “I’m happy to do all the painting and have all the museum shows.”

Born in Berlin and raised in Shanghai, Max and his family moved around the globe,

116

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF GALE (COVER, MAX); ERIC RYAN ANDERSON (BRUSH)

PETER MAX

ARTIST HAS CAPTURED EVERYONE FROM THE DALAI LAMA TO THE BEATLES TO THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO IN HIS PSYCHEDELIC STYLE. HERE, EXCLUSIVELY FOR MICHIGAN AVENUE, HE INTERPRETS THE WINDY CITY WHILE THE HOSTS OF MSNBC’S MORNING JOE, JOE SCARBOROUGH AND MIKA BRZEZINSKI, DISCOVER THE COLORFUL STORIES— AND THE MAN—BEHIND THE FAR-OUT MASTERPIECES.

Peter Max created artwork as covers for 10 Niche Media publications, including Michigan Avenue. The original paintings will be auctioned on Charitybuzz to benefit The Humane Society of the US.

michiganavemag.com  117

Peter Max creating the cover for Michigan Avenue. below: Max and Cyndi Lauper during a screening of the concert video The Wall in 1990.

“ Twenty-four seven, creativity, creativity, creativity—it’s all I do. I draw when I wake up in the morning, I draw on airplanes, I draw in limousines…”

—peter max from Tibet to Israel to Paris—each destination influencing his art. Eventually, Max settled in New York, where, at age 76, he continues to produce a dizzying array of works, including the cover of this issue of Michigan Avenue, one of a collection of 10 covers created exclusively for Niche Media publications, which includes Los Angeles Confidential, Gotham, Hamptons, Aspen Peak, Boston Common, Vegas, Capitol File, Philadelphia Style, and Ocean Drive. The original paintings will be auctioned on Charitybuzz starting this month to benefit The Humane Society of the US. “I loved creating this cover art for Michigan Avenue,” says Max. “I’ve made many friends in Chicago and had many gallery shows in this great city. My cover art for Michigan Avenue features landmarks of the Magnificent Mile—the iconic buildings reaching into the clouds, the tulips blossoming in vibrant color after a long winter, and a sailboat catching the wind on Lake Michigan. It’s a homage to this beautiful ‘City in a Garden.’”

In his studio—two full-floor lofts near New York’s Lincoln Center—Max has galleries’ worth of his work: a towering portrait of the Statue of Liberty he painted on the White House lawn for President Ronald Reagan in 1981; a multicolored Baldwin piano signed by his pal Ringo Starr; rows of Lucite sculptures taken from his “Angel” series; a painted guitar originally made for Bon Jovi; and portraits of everyone from Marilyn Monroe to John F. Kennedy, all done in Max’s distinctive style. “When you’re a singer and you have a really great voice, it’s not like you create a voice—it’s just there. My art is just there,” says Max. “I just put the brush on paper and I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I know it’s going to come out great. Twenty-four seven,

118 michiganavemag.com

creativity, creativity, creativity—it’s all I do. I draw on airplanes, I draw in limousines, I draw when I wake up in the morning, and in taxicabs.”

Beyond the studio, Max is a longtime vegetarian and practices yoga and meditation daily—a part of his routine for more than 40 years. He also gives freely of his time, money, and art to benefit animal charities such as The Humane Society of the US and the equine rescue organization Wild for Life Foundation. By his side in all of it is his wife of 17 years, Mary Max, whom the artist calls “one of my greatest inspirations.”

“When I met her, it fueled me, and she still fuels me today, quite a few years later,” he says of his wife, whom he spotted one day while out for coffee and declared he would marry at first sight.

“We donate money left and right, we have events up [in the studio] all the time, and we have six rescue animals of our own at the house.”

At present, Max also has seven feature film and animation projects in the works, including one for the estate of Frank Sinatra. Here, in celebration of Max’s 50 years of commercial success and his collection of city renderings exclusively for Niche Media, the artist opens up to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about his unparalleled career, his spirituality, his philanthropy, and the famous friends who have helped influence his work.

Behind the Brushstrokes JOE AND MIKA: Many artists will agree that it’s a struggle to gain recognition, but to keep it and have it last 50 years is staggering.

What do you think is the key to your success?

PETER MAX: It’s just being present, letting creativity come through. I’m also really lucky because we live in an age of media. It used to be, when I was on the cover of Life magazine 45 years ago, there were only three magazines—Time, Life, and Fortune. My art got to be on two of those covers.

Today there are thousands of magazines out there, and my work has been on 2,000 to 3,000 covers.

Early in your career, you studied many of the masters, from Rembrandt to Sargent. So how did you develop your cosmic style?

I always used to draw never even thinking that drawing is something you could do [as a career] once you became an adult. In China, I studied with the 6-year-old daughter of a street artist. Then in Israel, my mother hooked me up with a famous art professor from Austria. After we left Israel and moved to Paris, my mother signed me up for the classes for kids at the Louvre. And when we came to America, I found a private teacher, Frank Reilly [at the Art Students League of New York]; after high school I used to go into the city and study with him. Frank Reilly went to that school 30

photography by eric ryan anderson (max); ron galella/wireimage.com (lauper); opposite page: santi visalli/getty images

left:

Artist Peter Max in the early days of his career, in New York, 1967.

michiganavemag.com  119

Max visited The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the late 1960s.

Max sketching at a 1971 gallery show, surrounded by some of his work.

years earlier, and the kid who used to sit beside him was Norman Rockwell.

So Norman Rockwell and Frank Reilly studied together and Rockwell became Rockwell; Reilly became Peter Max’s teacher. Then I hooked up with some people at certain art schools who were very design-oriented.

For someone who studied realism, your painting style is not necessarily realist.…

No, I’m kind of impressionistic. Realism gave me the skill to paint, but my eye was more into design-ery art.

The Art Students League has produced some very famous alumni, including Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly. Ever have any celebrity encounters?

I once met Marilyn Monroe. The steps to the street were very narrow, and some of the students used to sit on the steps. I sat there one day with a friend of mine and I see this girl walking by, and I did a double take. I said to my friend, “It’s Marilyn Monroe,” and as she’s walking by, she turns to me and says, “I like your pants”—I had a lot of paint on my pants—and then she kept on walking. She was so stunning; all her features were just perfect.

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS Many people will recognize your paintings of the Statue of Liberty or the “Love” series, but what do you think your most defining piece is?

There are so many defining pieces. Painting the Statue of Liberty was a big

120

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

“I ALWAYS DAYDREAMED ABOUT AMERICA AS A CHILD GROWING UP IN SHANGHAI. I WAS MESMERIZED WITH AMERICAN CULTURE THROUGH COMIC BOOKS, AMERICAN JAZZ RADIO, AND HOLLYWOOD MOVIES.”

—PETER MAX

thing because it’s an emblem; it’s the symbol for the United States of America, so it got so much attention. Then I’ve painted so many unbelievable people, like the Dalai Lama, John F. Kennedy—I mean, close to 800 unbelievable portraits.

You’ve painted portraits of all of the Beatles, who also just celebrated 50 years in America. Over the years, your work has been linked many, many times to the band—tell us more about that relationship.

I met John way, way back, and I was best friends with Yoko Ono. One day I read in the paper that my little friend Yoko was going out with John. I knew John, I knew Yoko; I could have introduced them in a second. I called her up and she said, “Yeah, John tells me he knows you really well.” I used to go pick both of them up at the Dakota, where she lives, and we used to go to Central Park. We used to walk around and bullshit and talk and sing songs for years.

Here in your studio, you have a colorful piano that’s signed “To Peter, Love Ringo….”

I did a Baldwin piano for Ringo Starr, and he loved it. Then Baldwin called me up and said, “We love it so much, we’re going to send you a piano.” Two days later, they deliver it, the guys assemble it, and I roll out my paints and start painting the piano beautiful colors. Just as I’m finishing, my girl comes from the front desk and says, “Your buddy Ringo is here.” Ringo had been uptown and wanted to say thanks; instead he said, “I like yours better!” I said, “No, Ringo, yours is the first; it’s the nicest.” He asked if I had paints and

OPPOSITE PAGE: PHOTOGRAPHY COPYRIGHT PETER MAX 2014 (MAX, TONIGHT SHOW ); THIS PAGE: COPYRIGHT PETER MAX 2014 (GE CLOCKS)

I said, “Do I have paints?” We roll out a cart of paints, and he writes, “To Peter, Love Ringo,” followed by a star.

There’s a photo right on top of you and Ringo. Was it another famous Beatle, Paul McCartney, who turned you on to vegetarianism?

Paul and I became vegetarians at the same time. I’ve been a vegetarian now for over 40 years, and I’m only 38. [Laughs] I’ve had everybody up here in the studio—from Mick Jagger a couple of times to Ringo Starr to Paul McCartney—they’ve all been up here, they’re all my friends. We hang out; I’ve been very lucky.

Is it true that you also have a DJ who works here in your studio?

Yes—Joe. He plays for me all good contemporary music—jazz, bebop, fusion jazz, certain rock ’n’ roll. When I start painting, the music is on and I’m just in the groove. Music inspires my whole will to paint—it fuels the creativity.

You worked with George Harrison on the Integral Yoga Institute, a yoga center and ashram in New York’s Greenwich Village based on the teachings of Sri Swami Satchidananda, whom you brought to America in 1966. Was it George who introduced you to the Swami?

No, George was involved with the Maharishi out of England. George and I talked about my Satchidananda and his Maharishi, and we introduced each other to the other guy. The institute teaches how to go into meditation, get your mind focused, do stretching, become a vegan—a lot of health, behavioral, and mental benefits that have changed my whole life.

How did you first meet Swami Satchidananda?

Conrad Rooks, who was the heir of Avon cosmetics—he was a billionaire kid—called me one day when I was still in my early 20s, and he wanted me to come to Paris to help him with the colors on a film he was going to make.

Conrad picks me up from the airport [in Paris] and we’re hanging out in the restaurant at the hotel that he’s staying in, and then in comes the Swami— long beard, beautiful long black hair, gorgeous eyes—and Conrad introduces me to him. After spending a day with the Swami, I knew I had to bring him to New York. All my hippie buddies were taking LSD, and I was thinking, This is the man we need to be with, not this other stuff. I brought him to America and I opened yoga centers for him.

Peter Max (circa 1969) showcases the clock art he designed for General Electric.

THE BEST IS YET TO COME Over your career, you’ve accomplished so much. Is there a goal you have yet to achieve?

I’m always being creative; that’s full-time. And I’ve been listening to music very intensely my whole life, but especially in the last 36 months because I’ve been collecting music for seven feature films and animation.

Characters and stories—I have so many. The only thing I hadn’t collected was music, so I called my friends—Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bon Jovi—everyone I knew, and I got about 175,000 to 200,000 songs on these little iPods. Everything that’s pop-y is five stars, and if it’s a great piece but a little melodic, four stars. Everything that’s four and five stars is going in the films. Out of 200,000 pieces of music, I selected about 3,000 or 4,000 that I adore.

Have you ever thought about retiring?

I’ve been retired since I was 20. [Laughs] Retiring is getting to do completely what you love, right? It’s not like sitting in a chair somewhere. This is a nice life—it’s creative, colors, music, and people. I love it. MA

FROM TOP: Peter Max’s painting Flag With Heart; a commissioned portrait of a couple.

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

121

millen impact Ten years after its unveiling, Millennium Park isn’t just a success—it has proven to be a visionary work that has changed the way the world sees Chicago. by dawn reiss

I

1

AN ICON IS BORN YEARS IN THE MAKING, MILLENNIUM PARK BEGINS LIFE AS DALEY’S DREAM.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CRAIG DUGAN/HEDRICH BLESSING

T

NIUM

t’s an unseasonably warm spring day at Millennium Park.

At the Crown Fountain, a group of boisterous teenage boys pick up one of their own by all four limbs and carry him into the shallow water. Backlit by one of the fountain’s massive glowing towers, the boy surfs on his backside, letting out a gleeful cry, as the group races to the opposite side. Nearby, couples lounge in the grass at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, while families and individuals cluster on a wooden boardwalk, some with their bare feet in a creek in the Lurie Garden. Even as a storm approaches, a security guard has a hard time convincing people to leave as they take selfies in front of the Bean.

It’s hard to remember what life was like before Millennium Park. Since its opening on July 16, 2004, it has become one of the city’s iconic destinations and its second-most-visited tourist spot after Navy Pier. (It’s also easy to forget that Millennium Park is a rooftop garden built over an underground parking garage.) Despite its 24.5 acres, this urban oasis has an undeniable intimacy, each of its manageable areas like a cozy room within an expansive house. A decade into the life of this communal space of greenery and public art, we take a look at 10 moments that shaped the park’s development—and sealed its place in the hearts of Chicagoans and visitors alike.

Covering nearly 25 acres, Millennium Park trails only Navy Pier as Chicago’s most visited tourist attraction.

Although the idea for a park over the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, east of Michigan Avenue in Grant Park, had been batted around since 1977, it was Mayor Richard M. Daley who was inspired in 1997 to make it happen. He had grown tired of looking out his dentist’s Michigan Avenue office window at 900 parked cars and a railroad station, according to Ed Uhlir, executive director of the nonprofit Millennium Park Foundation.

“He said, ‘Let’s cover it with a park,’” says Uhlir, the park’s former project design director and master planner, who frequently used the story in his many public presentations.

After convincing the Illinois Central Railroad to donate its property rights back to the city, Daley’s team geared up for a public campaign. Daley tapped former Sara Lee CEO John Bryan to lead the effort to raise funds from the private sector, with an initial design mapped out by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Bryan knew the park needed an appealing name, so he did what any “good consumer marketing person would do,” he says, and approached advertising giant Leo Burnett for ideas.

“The name I liked was Millennium Park,” says Bryan. “‘Millennium’ was not a word in the people’s vocabulary so much in 1998, but it does mark a moment of time that is pretty extraordinary. And ‘park’ is just one of those good, hard, crisp words, like ‘Coca-Cola’ or ‘Kodak.’”

Although Leo Burnett repeatedly suggested the name “Garden of the Arts,” Bryan nixed it. “I said, ‘Forget it.

I’m not going to meet anybody in the Garden of the Arts. We’re going to name it Millennium Park.’”

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

123

2

Cloud Gate has won accolades from art critics, tourists—and the American Welding Society.

A DROP OF MERCURY

The graceful curves of Jay Pritzker Pavilion were inspired

by Vermeer’s Woman with a Water Jug.

3

124 michiganavemag.com

Thanks to a Chicago Tribune headline, it is now known simply as “the Bean.” But for a long time the iconic sculpture inspired by a drop of mercury—officially titled Cloud Gate—was nameless. Although Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor first presented his idea in March 1999, no one could have predicted how long it would take to complete this 110-ton sculpture.

Kapoor wanted his work to be interactive and engaging.

“This was a new place from which to look at Chicago,” he says.

“I wanted to make something that would engage both the city and the sky.” When the sculpture finally arrived in April 2004, it was just three months before the park’s opening. The cost of creating and transporting Cloud Gate had skyrocketed from $6 million to $23 million, paid with private funds. Uhlir says it “looked like Frankenstein’s brain,” with 168 stainless steel plates stitched together with tack welds. Several months after the park opened to the public, the sculpture was tented so it could be polished, and it was officially completed two years later.

These days, Kapoor jokes, does it really matter how late it was finished? “I don’t think so,” he says. “When they commissioned me, they said, ‘We want you to make something that will last a thousand years.’ Well, let’s hope so. Ten is a very small fraction.”

A MODERN MOVEMENT Chicago power player Cindy Pritzker reshapes the park’s design by pushing for a contemporary aesthetic.

Cindy Pritzker suggests that initial design concepts for the Jay Pritzker Pavilion were “in the wrong millennium”—like a band shell with an arch, gaslight lamp posts, and static art on either side. “Why would we build in the past when we’re looking to the future?” says Pritzker, who with her husband, the late Jay Pritzker (who ran the Hyatt Hotel chain and Marmon Group), and the rest of her family donated $15 million to the cause—a quarter of the pavilion’s final $60 million price tag.

Thanks to Aaron Montgomery Ward’s 19th-century “open, clear, and free” land decree, only works of art could be placed in the park, not permanent structures—or else they had to be built underground, like the Harris Theater. Which is why Pritzker offered an alternate suggestion: Get architect Frank Gehry so the “pavilion would be the art.”

For many, this was the turning point toward a more modern movement in Millennium Park. “In an instant it just kind of changed for me,” says Donna LaPietra, chairwoman of the Millennium Park Foundation, which has raised private-sector funds for the park. “Cindy was the next step that really changed the framing of the park.”

photography by Getty Images (Bean); scott mcdonald/Hedrich Blessing (Pritzker); opposite page: Photography by Hedrich Blessing

Despite enormous costs and considerable delays, Cloud Gate proves to be well worth the hassle.

Snaking 925 feet, Frank Gehry’s BP Pedestrian Bridge has just a five percent slope, making it accessible to the physically disabled.

GETTING FRANK CONVINCING FRANK GEHRY TO SIGN ON OPENS THE DOOR FOR OTHER BIG-NAME CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS TO JOIN THE MASSIVE PROJECT. Toronto native Frank Gehry has long been a fan of the Windy City. “When I was a lucky young kid, my father used to bring me to Chicago to go to Mills Novelty Company, because he used to buy pinball machines and place them in restaurants in Canada,” says Gehry, referring to the Chicago-based company that was once the leading manufacturer of coin-operated machines. “I’ve loved Chicago from the beginning, and I still do.”

But it took Gehry a while before he agreed to work on the Millennium Park project. In the summer of 1998, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Adrian Smith initially approached Gehry “to do the façade of the band shell that was mostly going to be underground,” the architect says. “He thought I could do some fish sculptures on either side. So I turned that down.”

Then in December, Uhlir and James Feldstein, Bryan’s chief fundraiser, took a covert trip to Santa Monica, California, to try to persuade Gehry to reconsider. “I thought it was the same project with the decorations on the side, and I said no,” recalls Gehry. “Then they said I could pretty much do what I wanted to do.”

While looking through the perspective drawings, Gehry noticed a bridge, says Uhlir. The architect mentioned that he had submitted a bridge design for the Thames but had lost out to Norman Foster. “So I told Frank, ‘If you do the pavilion, we’ll throw in the bridge,’” Uhlir says. Then Gehry asked who was funding the project. “When they said Cindy Pritzker, I said, ‘Oh that’s different. Why didn’t you tell me that?’” recalls Gehry, who won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989. “When I realized it was Cindy who wanted me to do it, that was it.”

Having Gehry on board made it easier to attract other internationally renowned artists. “I think getting Frank raised the bar on the whole park,” says Pritzker. “I don’t think we would have had the Bean, nor would we have that wonderful fountain. It just got us the best of the best.”

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

125

5

MONEY MATTERS a public-private partnership expands the possibilities for Millennium Park.

Thanks to the fundraising efforts of John Bryan, the people behind Millennium Park were able to think bigger. “It’s hard to say no to John,” says Steve Crown, general partner of the privately held Henry Crown and Company, whose family donated $10 million for the Crown Fountain. “He may be one of the greatest fundraisers in the history of Chicago.” Unlike a university or a cultural institution with a large donor base, Millennium Park had nothing, says Bryan. “We wanted the best the world had to offer. That meant going to the private sector.”

While others had floated park ideas previously, it was the strong political backing of Daley that quieted Millennium Park’s naysayers.

“We had a mayor who was strong enough to protect the private sector from the bureaucrats and City Hall,” Bryan says. “When Mayor Bloomberg came to see our park, he said, ‘You could never do it in New York because they just wouldn’t let it be done.’”

As the scope of the project grew—from 16.5 acres to 24.5 acres— the Millennium Park Foundation pushed for more funding. By May 2004, less than 10 years after it began, the foundation had raised $143 million, and by June 2005 it had raised $173.5 million, according to Timothy Gilfoyle, author of Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark. Says Gilfoyle, “It was the perfect storm of positive events that allowed it to be built.”

Although its final construction budget more than tripled, today most people think building Millennium Park was one of Chicago’s greatest feats. “This is one of the true successes of a private-public partnership,” says Crown. “You don’t see that very often.”

A replica of Grant Park’s original semicircle of Doric-style columns, Wrigley Square’s Millennium Monument pays homage to the park’s individual and corporate benefactors.

126 michiganavemag.com

6

TWIN GARGOYLES The Crown Fountain turns Jaume Plensa’s dream of walking on water into a reality.

Inspired by the gargoyles he saw at European cathedrals, Spanish artist Jaume Plensa designed the Crown Fountain to feature water spilling down glass blocks and spurting from the mouths of faces into a reflecting pool that would skim the top of one’s shoes. “My dream was to walk on the water and offer that dream to others,” says Plensa.

To create it took 18,000 glass bricks to build two 50-foot honeycomblike towers, and a computer hidden below to control the 1,000 alternating faces on the towers’ screens. “When I was developing the project, many people were concerned about using technology in the public space,” says Plensa. “‘Nobody will understand; it’s too intellectual.’”

The night before it opened, Plensa gave the fountain a test. “Kids came over and started to enjoy it without any prejudice,” he says. “It was not intellectual; it was just a place for freedom. They interacted completely, without any problem with my faces and jets of water. It was complete magic.”

The Crown Fountain’s towers project the digitized faces of 960 Chicagoans, submitted by school, church, and community groups.

Moments of a Millennium Millennium Park by the numbers.

70

Number of volunteers at the Lurie Garden

925

Length (in feet) of the BP Bridge

6,195,000

Cost of operating the park (in dollars), from the 2014 city budget

0.25

Thickness of the “skim coat” (in inches) of the water in the Crown Fountain

140,000

Number of bulbs planted in the Lurie Garden since 2006

4,000

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE HALL/HEDRICH BLESSING; OPPOSITE PAGE: PHOTOGRAPHY BY GETTY IMAGES

Number of fixed red seats at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion

20

Number of glass bricks being replaced in the Crown Fountain this year (for the first time)

52

Number of audio speakers being upgraded in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in 2014

120

Height (in feet) of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion

2

Number of times Cloud Gate is cleaned each week with a soft brush at the end of a hose

66

Length (in feet) of Cloud Gate

150

Amount (in pounds) of honey harvested last year from the bees in the Lurie Garden

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

127

9 7 A PARTY IN THE PARK

Millennium Park’s greatest triumph may be its interactivity.

The source of Millennium Park’s magnetic appeal can be hard to pinpoint. Is it the outdoor concerts with amazing surround sound? Is it seeing fun-house reflections in the Bean or water gushing down a huge tower? In fact, it’s all of that and more— the essence of the park is a sense of playful culture, a trait shared by Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. “If you think about the three pieces, they kind of work together,” says Gehry. “It’s interesting that none of us talked to each other while we were designing.”

Gehry calls the ensemble a “party in the park,” starting with the band shell. “When you put music in,” he explains, “it takes it to the next level. Then to have Anish’s sculpture next to it, which reflects the city and the people.... Then there’s Plensa with these gargoyles, which is a brilliant, brilliant idea—so personally engaging you can’t stop looking at it. And then the fountain became a party, with the kids playing in the fountain and in the water. Everything is complementary, and that rarely happens. I don’t know any other place that contemporary where those three things come together like that.”

Mayor Richard M. Daley had grown tired of looking out his dentist’s office window at 900 parked cars. He said, “Let’s cover it with a park.”

8

128 michiganavemag.com

A BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE

Building on Millennium Park’s success, Grant Park’s evolution continues with Maggie Daley Park.

For years, Chicagoans have joked about the snaky silver BP Bridge in Millennium Park being a “bridge to nowhere.” It previously connected to Richard J. Daley Bicentennial Plaza, which is now being transformed into Maggie Daley Park.

“I personally consider Millennium Park one of the best, if not the best, public spaces built in the Western world in the last 50 years—it’s an incredible attraction,” says Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. “The reason I’m building out Maggie Daley Park is to build on that strength.”

Like Millennium Park, its new sister park is being paid for with public and private funds; it’s expected to cost “around $60 million,” says Eve Rodriguez, the mayor’s assistant press secretary. A soft opening is planned for this fall, with the official opening slated for spring or summer 2015, after plantings take place. Says Emanuel, “I know a lot of other mayors are jealous of what we do here in the sense of public-private partnership.”

With a children’s play area, rock-climbing walls, and a skating ribbon, “it’s going to be a more physically active area that will complement Millennium Park,” adds Matt Nielson, deputy commissioner for cultural planning and operations in Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

AN URBAN OASIS The Lurie Garden subtly references Chicago’s historic past.

Tucked away in the park’s southeast corner, the Lurie Garden is a five-acre urban oasis where park-raised bees busily pollinate clusters of purple and magenta flowers and prairie plants—more than 240 perennial species in all. It’s also become a favorite destination for Chicagoans seeking respite from the city. As on the wooden docks of Lake Michigan, on a quiet day visitors can hear the water lapping beneath the boardwalk that lines the garden.

Conceptually, the 15-foot hedge around the garden is a nod to Chicago’s moniker “The City of Big Shoulders,” says Kathryn Gustafson, part of the landscape architecture team of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, which worked on the garden with plant specialist Piet Oudolf and lighting designer Robert Israel. In researching Chicago’s history, she found abundant references to those shoulders. “Mink trappers would be in canoes all day rowing, and when they got out of their canoes they had spindly little legs and big shoulders,” Gustafson says with a laugh.

“There’s also the big shoulders of the steel industry and the fact that everything moves through Chicago…. So we wanted the hedge to feel like shoulders. Since Frank Gehry’s fantastic bandstand looks like an Indian headdress, we figured we’d give it a pair of shoulders to sit on.”

10 WORLD CLASS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBIN CARLSON

MILLENNIUM PARK IS A KEY TO INCREASING CHICAGO’S STATUS AS A HOT INTERNATIONAL TOURIST DESTINATION.

In addition to its abundant plant life, in spring and fall the Lurie Garden is a popular rest stop for migrating birds.

As Mayor Emanuel tries to increase Chicago’s rank as a tourist destination (currently it’s ninth in the US) and boost its number of annual visitors to 55 million by 2020, he says he sees Millennium Park as “a hub to that process.” But while visitors are important, adds Gilfoyle, it’s also about making Chicago a more desirable place to live, attracting millennials and people in their 30s, especially those in the tech industry, who want urban living with cultural amenities. Millennium Park “is more than just a cultural statement and piece of art,” he says. “It [has] an economic function.”

To accomplish that means spending money. Building the park took $484 million, with $222 million raised from more than 100 individuals, foundations, and corporations, according to Gilfoyle’s book. That’s in addition to the $29.5 million in short-term loans that the city took out between 2005 and 2011 to operate the park, and the $6.195 million the city has budgeted for 2014 for that same purpose, according to Rodriguez.

But despite the hefty price tag, the success of Millennium Park as a free gathering place for visitors and locals alike has been undeniable. “It incorporates all that’s great about Chicago and really has joined the city’s other iconic great assets,” says Desiree Rogers, chair of Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism marketing arm. Adds Bryan, “It is all we imagined it would be in defining Chicago to the world.” And Cindy Pritzker puts it even more simply in summing up the ultimate appeal of this urban oasis: “It’s the people’s park.” MA

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

129

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GETTY IMAGES (NAVY PIER FERRIS WHEEL, LAKE MICHIGAN, CALDER SCULPTURE); MICHELE ALMEIDA, MISTE PHOTOGRAPHY (RACE TO MACKINAC)

THE

BRITISH From the summer opening of Soho House to the first Virgin Hotel in the US, British culture is impacting Chicago like never before. by catherine de orio Photography by Brian Sorg

michiganavemag.com  131

t

he Brits have been attracting the world’s eye of focused Soho House indicates that Chicago’s late with Downton Abbey and the birth of Prince cultural cachet is on the rise, and the Brits are George, among other headline makers, but this flying the flag. The influx of British brands in year their sights are set on Chicago. With Soho the Windy City “says as much about Chicago as House paving the way this summer, Virgin Hotels it does about us,” notes Stephen Bridges, Britain’s and a slew of other Brit-cool brands are bringing consul general in Chicago. “It’s [the UK] seeing their unique blend of smart and stylish to our city. Chicago as a serious place, that we should do Soho House, an exclusive private-club and business here, and we’re only going to do that hotel group based in London, opens the doors to here if the people are going to buy the product.”

Fashion brands have led the brigade investits first Chicago location in August. In the works for eight years, the project is not the British ing in the Windy City, including AllSaints brand’s first foray into the US (New York, Miami, Spitalfields, Topshop, Ted Baker, and Burberry, and West Hollywood outposts came before), but whose splashy five-story store with the signature it will be the largest North American location to plaid façade is still the buzz of the Magnificent date. “It’s got everything,” enthuses Nick Jones, Mile nearly two years after opening in late 2012. the group’s founder and managing director. And With the addition of the heritage brands Barbour by “everything,” he means the space—a former and Church’s, as well as the suiting essentials of 1900s-era leatherworking factory—will house a Charles Tyrwhitt, Chicago has officially entered private members’ club; a 12,000-square-foot the British conversation, sartorially speaking.

British interest in Chicago makes complete gym, complete with a boxing ring; a Cowshed Spa; an intimate screening room; a variety of sense to Jessica Moazami, a Windy City –based food and beverage options, including the freelance fashion editor and Chicago Tribune London imports Pizza East and contributor who hails from Chicken Shop; the Allis Bar, London. “Chicago consumnamed for the family that ers are more sophisticated owned the factory; a 40-room and are willing to pay for hotel; and a rooftop swimming quality,” Moazami says. pool with sweeping views of And that—combined with the city, sure to have even the the rise of UK style icons —Joey Stevenson like Kate Middleton, the most jaded Chicagoans queuing up for membership.

Duchess of Cambridge; It And membership definitely has its privi- girl Alexa Chung; and the Beckhams, all of leges—if you can get it. This is not a country club them providing a showcase for British brands— where a recommendation and the willingness to makes it natural that Brit culture would also plunk down some cash will gain you access. Nor appeal to Chicagoans. Bridges adds that while will the right pedigree ensure entrée, as it does at the British may not be credited with the refineLondon’s storied gentlemen’s clubs. For Jones, ment of the French or Italians, there is still a it’s about creating a place for “creative souls and “sense of Brits as cool.… We are cool in our like-minded individuals.” Although “you don’t music, cool in our theater, and cool in our fashhave to be determined by your job,” he says, club ion.” And that coolness is infiltrating the city in members are predominately involved in the many ways. For example, Anthony Freud, genmedia, fashion, the arts, and other culturally ori- eral director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Sir ented pursuits. Adds Joey Stevenson, Soho Andrew Davis, music director and principal House Chicago’s event programming manager, conductor at the Lyric; and Zoë Ryan, chair and “There’s something exciting happening in the curator of architecture and design at the Art Chicago creative community right now, and we Institute of Chicago, all hail from across the pond. wanted to be there as it took off.”

“We have that design, art that runs through us,” Chicago has long had strong business ties with says Bridges. “And as Chicago is becoming more the UK, thanks to Willis Group, Mintel, and global and has embraced it, they’re okay with numerous other British companies with major Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen.” offices here, but the arrival of the creativitycontinued on page 134

132 michiganavemag.com

“ Brits see kindred spirits in Chicago; British brands fit right in.”

THE CURATOR

ZOË RYAN, CHAIR AND JOHN H. BRYAN CURATOR OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN, THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

London-born Zoë Ryan, chair of the Art Institute of Chicago and its John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design, takes a forward-thinking approach to her exhibitions, giving them both experimental and experiential components and stimulating dialogue on how society relates to design and architecture. Ryan’s career has taken her from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum to New York’s Museum of Modern Art to the Van Alen Institute, a nonprofit committed to improving the design of the public realm. Since she arrived at the Art Institute in 2006, she has built its contemporary design collection and spearheaded the acquisition of more than 1,500 pieces. 111 S. Michigan Ave., 312-443-3600; artic.edu On design: I talk about design in very broad strokes. I’ve done exhibitions on graphic design, fashion, furniture, product design, and multimedia design…. I try to be as open-minded as possible, because the discipline is moving in really exciting directions.

Dream exhibition: Kate Bush is touring again, and a show about her—about British music and design—would be really cool. Working in Chicago: In New York there is so much going on, and sometimes you feel like your project is one among so many others. In Chicago there are only a handful of museums taking on architecture and design, so the platform is much bigger and you feel like you’re making a contribution.

Civic pride: Chicago is proud of its architectural and design heritage.

It’s fantastic to work in a place where that’s a given, without having to explain why architecture and design and the arts are important. Sweet tooth: I really miss English chocolate—I’ve got to have Cadbury’s. Missing home: I miss pub culture—a lunch at the pub with family and friends. Humor: British humor is very silly and dry…. It can be very cynical, but there’s lots of playfulness.

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

133

The Diplomat

stephen bridges, uk consul general chicago

Although Stephen Bridges, Britain’s consul general in Chicago, arrived in the Windy City a scant year ago, the career diplomat, former British ambassador to Cambodia, and renewable-energy entrepreneur has hit the ground running. Strategically targeting cities in his 13-state territory, he fosters opportunities for trade and investment, manages long-held business relationships, and promotes implementation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a proposed free-trade agreement between the US and the UK that would create as many as 30,200 jobs in Illinois alone. Rest from his formal responsibilities usually involves entertaining visitors and promoting British culture—from Shakespeare to the Beatles to Downton Abbey—in the stunning official residence just off Michigan Avenue, where he lives with his wife, Kim, and two dogs, Coco and Montague.

Chicago’s best: The people—they made us welcome from day one: People from the building found out my wife is Asian, so they brought moon cakes. Perception of Chicago in the UK and vice versa: Al Capone and Michael Jordan. And people’s image of the UK is still soldiers with big fluffy hats and red tunics and inedible food. [Changing perceptions] is something I am going to be working on. Diplomatic approach: Too many diplomats remain aloof and detached—almost tangential to Chicago society.

We want to be part of it. It’s a lot easier if we are part of your society and we go to your parties, rather than you go to ours once a year and stick a flag up the pole and sing “God Save the Queen.” Integration is key.

134 michiganavemag.com

continued from page 132 But it’s not just British artistic and sartorial savvy that’s impacting Chicago. With the opening of his new Brit-inspired riverside restaurant, River Roast, Michelin-starred chef Tony Mantuano is bringing a taste of London to the Windy City. “For so long the food in London was the butt of the joke,” he says with a laugh, “but I think it might be one of the most exciting places to eat right now.” Mantuano is putting his money where his mouth is in his first non-Italian eatery, which was inspired by the London restaurant Roast and will serve up homey classics like whole roasted chicken, succulent beef slices, and market-fresh veg. “It’s a return to sitting down at the table and having a great roast and farmers market vegetables,” he says.

Nick Spencer, owner of the recently expanded Lakeview grocery store and restaurant Spencer’s Jolly Posh Foods, echoes Mantuano’s sentiment, explaining that he’s not necessarily on a mission to change Chicagoans’ minds about British food; he just “wants to give them a taste of home.”

And home seems to be the thread connecting the two cultures. Despite the stereotype of the chilly Brit, creating a warm, inviting feeling of comfort is part of the core philosophy of the British brands arriving in Chicago. Case in point: Virgin, which is set to unveil the first property in its new boutique hotel line in the Loop this autumn. Says Doug Carrillo, vice president of sales and marketing for Virgin Hotels North America, “Elements throughout the hotel will take you through Virgin’s British heritage and British heritage overall.” Just as important, the hotels are designed to offer “homey intimacy and heartfelt service.” Carrillo explains that like Virgin’s Limited Edition properties, the Chicago hotel will be like an extension of home—but with all the innovations and cheeky touches for which Virgin is known. Similarly, Jones touts Soho House as “a home away from home” for its members. To that end, Vicky Charles, the company’s head designer, is devoting 30 percent of the furnishings to vintage and reclaimed finds, to give the space a comfortable, eclectic vibe. “That’s the way you decorate your home,” she says. “Your most comfortable chair may be a bit faded.” It’s an aesthetic that appeals to Midwestern sensibilities.

“I think Brits see kindred spirits in Chicago,” says Soho House’s Stevenson. “Chicagoans have a great sense of humor, they’re drawn to authenticity and shy away from anything that’s too flashy—it feels like British brands fit right in.”

Perhaps we are, after all, simply two nations divided by a common language. MA

THE CREATIVE CATALYST

JOEY STEVENSON, EVENT PROGRAMMING MANAGER, SOHO HOUSE CHICAGO

It’s no wonder that Soho House Chicago tapped Joey Stevenson—its London-born, Singapore- and Hong Kong–raised, Chicago-based former membership launch manager—to head up the new location’s event programming. With a résumé that boasts positions such as editor at the British style magazine The Face and head of San Francisco’s hip event-curation site Flavorpill, Stevenson has something worthwhile to say on almost every topic. With her finger firmly on the city’s pulse thanks to meet-ups with nearly 500 local creatives in advance of Soho House Chicago’s opening, her task is to ignite conversations among club members through collaborative events, and it’s a safe bet that she’ll dream up some doozies. Soho House Chicago, 113–125 N. Green St.; sohohousechicago.com She’s a wanderer: Chicago is the 10th city I’ve lived in, but it’s the first place where I’m buying a home. I’m besotted with this city. London–Chicago parallels: There’s a similar attitude. People in Chicago and London aren’t as nakedly ambitious as, say, those in New York or Los Angeles. There is a sense that people are less defined by their job and more interested in a balanced work life that allows for additional creative side projects. Chicago’s best: Chicago folk are the nicest, most humble, and most creative people in the world. I love the “hard work will get you far” attitude. Everyone is extremely genuine and friendly. And you guys sure love meat. Chicago weather: Obviously, winter here is a bit of a shocker. Brits are used to crap weather, but the last winter here was like being stranded on the surface of Pluto. To get through it, I started drinking a lot of bourbon.

My current favorite is FEW, distilled in Evanston. Brit bites: My favorite British trend in Chicago is Scotch eggs.

Imagine an egg wearing a comforter made of sausage. Dusek’s is the place that I think has really nailed them.

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

135

The Purveyor nick spencer, spencer’s jolly posh foods

Leeds native and former Ernst & Young consultant Nick Spencer met his wife, Connie, a Chicagoan, in London, fell in love, and eventually landed in Chicago in 2009. With his country’s bangers and bacon as inspiration, he founded Spencer’s Jolly Posh Foods two years ago. What started as a farmers market stand in Lincoln Park has blossomed into a full-scale wholesale business, supplying rashers and sausages to markets such as Mariano’s and restaurants like Paddy Long’s and Bangers & Lace, as well as importing specialty foods from the UK. This summer, an expanded Spencer’s Jolly Posh Foods debuted, complete with a full-service restaurant and a Pimm’s patio. 3755 N. Southport Ave., 872-802-3840; jollyposh.com Bacon bits: In the British mind, there are two types of bacon: American or streaky bacon and proper bacon, which is what all the expats call British bacon here in America. I make the latter. It comes from the back instead of the belly, and it’s not crispy like American bacon. Chicago love: When people come here for the first time, they are blown away by what a cool city it is. I feel similar living here as I do in London, actually. Tastes of home: What we are looking to do is make basic food done really well—home-style British food. It’s the kind of food your mum would make for you, so treacle tarts, shepherd’s pie, homemade shortbread, or Battenberg cake. British spirit: Our patio is called a Pimm’s patio because the focus is like in England when it’s finally warm and the sky is not gray, you can go to any pub and sit outside and get a nice big jug of Pimm’s. Chicago style: Well-tailored clothes are definitely part of the suit set here, but Chicagoans wear brown shoes with their suits all of the time.

Can someone please tell them it’s wrong? Please don’t wear brown shoes with a suit. Ever. It’s a fashion no-no.

136 michiganavemag.com

British Invasion

BRITAIN MAY BE TRENDING IN CHICAGO THESE DAYS, BUT POSH VISITORS HAVE A LONG HISTORY HERE. While the “special relationship” between the US and the UK stretches back many decades, Chicago has a special place in the hearts of the British, and these favorite moments have further fortified those ties.

MIND THE CHAT

A CHICAGO GUIDE TO BRITISH TERMS. BRIT SPEAK

Are you having a laugh?

CHICAGO TALK

Are you kidding me?

BRIT SPEAK

Taking the piss CHICAGO TALK

Messing with you BRIT SPEAK

Brilliant!

CHICAGO TALK

Awesome!

Queen Elizabeth II, July 6, 1959: The first reigning British monarch ever to visit Chicago, Her Majesty was greeted by more than a million people at the lakefront as she arrived on the royal yacht Britannia to tour the International Trade Fair.

The Beatles, September 5, 1964: The Fab Four stopped in Chicago on their first full US tour and launched the British Invasion, during which British artists dominated the American airwaves, changing the history of American popular music.

The Rolling Stones, November 15, 1964: While in Chicago to play at the Arie Crown Theater, Mick Jagger and company recorded 14 tracks at Chess Records, including “It’s All Over Now,” which became their first number-one hit in the UK.

Phil Collins, Summer 1984: The soft-rock singer was famously denied access to the Pump Room based on his clothing while companion Robert Plant was allowed in, inspiring the title of Collins’s Grammywinning album No Jacket Required.

BRIT SPEAK

Knackered

CHICAGO TALK

Exhausted

BRIT SPEAK

Bugger off

CHICAGO TALK

Scram/Beat it

BRIT SPEAK

Chuffed as nuts CHICAGO TALK

Excited

BRIT SPEAK

Dodgy

CHICAGO TALK PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES (ARCHIVAL); CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM (BEATLES)

Shady

BRIT SPEAK

Bob’s your uncle!

CHICAGO TALK

Boom!/There you have it!

BRIT SPEAK

Princess Diana, June 6, 1996: While Princess Diana was visiting to raise money for cancer research, Chicagoans waited in the lobby of the Drake Hotel to give her flowers, and at a fundraiser at the Field Museum, Her Royal Highness received a standing ovation.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, April 22, 1999: At the height of the Kosovo crisis, Britain’s elected leader delivered a speech to the Economic Club about the foundation of his Blair Doctrine on international intervention.

Prime Minister David Cameron, May 20, 2012: Cameron stirred up excitement among entrepreneurs when he visited the digital start-up hub 1871, prior to attending a NATO summit, as part of his mission to strengthen UK-US economic ties.

Anna Wintour, June 12, 2012: The editrix extraordinaire hosted the “Runway to Win” fundraiser with Iman at Harpo Studios for President Obama’s re-election campaign.

Get your knickers in a twist CHICAGO TALK

Get upset

BRIT SPEAK

The full monty CHICAGO TALK

Go big or go home BRIT SPEAK

Legless CHICAGO TALK

Smashed, hammered

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

137

Wi nne t k a

80 locust RoaD 80locust.info

8 Bedrooms, 5.4 Bathrooms $6,500,000 the kellogg estate. Rich in architectural history and design, this private Mediterranean style retreat sits on approximately 3 acres.

Features include an expansive DeGiulio kitchen, an elegant living and dining room, a luxurious master suite and bath, pool and pool house.

susan MaMan 847.881.0200 susanmaman@atproperties.com mamanmarketwatch.com

atproperties.com

lake FoR est

1494 WeDGeWooD DRive 1494Wedgewood.info

5 Bedrooms, 5.2 Bathrooms $2,999,000 open living at its fnest. extraordinary 5 year old estate on a secluded 1.5 acre. Hand selected craftsmen built this amazing home with no expense spared. uncompromising elegance with seldom seen quality. a solidly built beautiful home for the most discriminating buyer.

kaRen FelDMan 847.858.5875 karenfeldman@atproperties.com athomewithkaren.com

atproperties.com

k e n ilWorth

615 WarWick road

615Warwick.info

5 Bedrooms, 6.1 Bathrooms

John Van Bergen’s pinnacle showcase home in an amazing location. Steps to new trier, Sears School and lake michigan’s beach. Spectacular formal living room with vaulted ceilings and a magnifcent walk-in wine cellar. $2,850,000

kathryn & kelly mangel 847.372.5801 / 847.910.2621 kathryn@atproperties.com kellym@atproperties.com

lak e Vie W

431 W oakdale, Unit 15cd

431Woakdale15cd.info

3 Bedrooms, 4 Bathrooms

Vintage meets modern in this 4000+ sq ft penthouse gem. a great entertaining space with a wine room, hardwood foors, original woodwork, spectacular bathrooms and a massive master bedroom suite with a gas freplace. $1,250,000

Jack qUill & mary Vallender 312.296.3151 / 312.237.1300 jackquill@atproperties.com maryvallender@atproperties.com

atproperties.com

lincoln par k

2263 n JanSSen aVenUe 2263nJanssenave.info

6 Bedrooms 6.1 Bathrooms $2,850,000

emily SachS Wong 312.286.0800 esw@atproperties.com eSWchicago.com

atproperties.com

new, extra wide environs home located on a long corner lot. over $200k in upgrades with phenomenal fnishes including an up to the minute white kitchen. all ensuite bedrooms/ baths. custom millwork and built ins throughout. great outdoor space.

Virtually maintenance free with heated sidewalks, faux grass yard, and timbertech decks.

Haute Property NEWS, STARS, AND TRENDS IN REAL ESTATE

Bring the Outdoors In THE LATEST LUXURY AMENITY? LIVING WALLS, WHICH ARE MAKING SOME LOCAL RESIDENCES FEEL LIKE THE GARDEN OF EDEN ALL YEAR LONG.

BY JUDITH NEMES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATHAN KIRKMAN

A

n edgy piece of modern art used to be the boldest way to stop people in their tracks when they entered a high-end residential building for the first time. Now, though, local luxury developers are moving beyond art and are decking out their public spaces with lush “living walls,” the latest design expression of the trend that’s bringing elements of the outdoors indoors.

These are not your everyday installations of English ivy coaxed to climb a trellis; rather, these green walls typically feature an array of tropical or succulent plants embedded in soil or hanging gorgeously from panels or other wall-mounted structures. They’re made possible thanks to a recent bumper crop of efficient growing and watering techniques for vertical plant systems, and landscape designers are working with building owners who want to set themselves apart in a competitive marketplace. They’re finding that many successful urbanites want to live in chic high-rises but also like being around greenery. continued on page 144

The lobby of The Grant combines greenery with art in Aspen Mays’s Every Leaf on a Tree.

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

143

haute property

continued from page 143 “Putting plants together in an artistic way on a wall is still so new and unusual that people are fascinated by it,” says Daniel Weinbach, principal-in-charge at the Chicago landscape architecture firm Daniel Weinbach & Partners.

“It creates a focus the same way a piece of art does. The natural environment also tends to promote a sense of well-being.”

Weinbach’s firm worked with The Habitat Company to create an interior living wall as part of the overall landscape design for the developer’s deluxe new rental building on the corner of Hubbard and Kingsbury Streets. In the ninthfloor amenity area of Hubbard Place Apartments, located across from the East Bank Club, one wall is covered in 342 tropical plants, which creates an inviting setting in an open space boasting a fireplace and groupings of couches and chairs.

Hidden behind the wall is an irrigation and drainage system requiring little maintenance, says Steve Neumann, a plant specialist with LiveWall, a subsidiary of Hortech (a nursery in Spring Lake, Michigan), which installed the vertical garden last fall. The building’s amenity level has floor-toceiling windows, which create a well-lit environment for optimum plant growth, Neumann adds.

After the developer McCaffery Interests and Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds purchased The

Lofts at Roosevelt Collection, on Roosevelt Road in the South Loop, a complete redesign of the lobbies in the twin residential buildings in 2012 included the installation of large panels of living plants, says Pamela Austin, senior project manager of development. The 342 rental apartments and the ground-level retail stores face a U-shaped outdoor promenade with green space, and Austin wanted to extend that feeling of being surrounded by nature right into the lobbies, she says, adding, “The lobbies also have a contemporary style with lots of hard surfaces, and the green walls soften that a little.”

AMLI Residential, known for its emphasis on sustainable design, decided to add a living wall this summer to the amenities f loor of its new AMLI River North property, at Clark and Hubbard Streets, says Jennifer Wolf, senior vice president of development. The building, which opened last July with 409 rental units, offers other green and healthful features, including a smokefree environment, fresh air pumped constantly into the ventilation system, and a garden of herbs on the outdoor deck that residents can snip for use in their home cooking, says Wolf, so the project makes perfect sense. “The living wall really adds to the intangible lifestyle factor of what people are looking for when they’re choosing a building.” MA The green walls at The Lofts at Roosevelt Collection help soften the lobby’s hard surfaces.

144 michiganavemag.com

green illusions Art mimics nature in these residential installations.

Last year, when Related Midwest started to revamp its recent acquisition The Grant, an upscale 298-unit condo building overlooking Grant Park, the developer found that there wasn’t enough light in the lobby to sustain a wall with live plants. Yet Related wanted to convey the message that residents were buying into a lifestyle centered on the park, explains Ann Thompson, the company’s SVP of architecture and design.

With the help of an art consultant, Thompson came up with the next best thing: a work of art that evokes the feeling of being in the park.

Last summer, a large-scale artwork

by Aspen Mays titled Every Leaf on a Tree was installed in the building’s lobby. Previously part of an exhibit at the MCA, the piece consists of 900 individual photographs of every leaf on a tree, each one attached only at the top two corners. “It’s kinetic,” says Thompson. “When there’s a gust of wind through the lobby doors, the leaves flutter. It brings the exterior landscape into the lobby.”

Related Midwest is taking the same approach at its deluxe rental building OneEleven, opening this summer at 111 West Wacker Drive, whose lobby will feature a digital bouquet of flowers that stretches across nine large HD video screens. Artist Diana Thater created images of flowers that together look like a still photograph, but each is actually a loop of photos that produce subtle motion on the screens. “The clouds slowly pass behind the flowers, and there’s a breeze that comes through and all the petals flutter,” explains Thompson, who says the hefty cost ($110,000) will be worth it. “In these urban environments, the population really wants to be grounded in a landscape.”

ISN’T

I T T I M E YO U W O R K E D W I T H

A B R O K E R W H O U N D E R STA N D S T H AT T H E L I T T L E D E TA I LS M A K E ALL TH E DI FFE R E NCE?

BOUTIQUE BROKERAGE | TECHNOLOGY EXPERTS | CUSTOMER SERVICE SPECIALISTS | SALES & LEASING

Lauren Mitrick Scott Newman

NEWMAN REALTY The Newman-Mitrick Real Estate Group (773) 313-3720 info@newmanrealtyillinois.com www.newmanknowschicago.com

FINANCING POWERED BY:

JIM POMPOSELLI The Federal Savings Bank 300 N. Elizabeth Street, Suite 3E Chicago, IL 60607 I USA (312) 738-6223

Unthink your shopping experience this summer as top retailers along Michigan Avenue, Oak Street and Chicago’s Loop fnd inspiration for their windows in the Art Institute Chicago’s summer exhibition Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926 -1938. Join us as we celebrate the art and industry of window design, and vote for your favorite display.

Buccellati, Glasses Ltd., Ike Behar

MichiganAveMag.com/ProjectWindows

brokers’ roundtable

Hot Sales in the Summertime Despite summer sojourns, the real estate market is still mirroring the weather. by lisa skolnik

T

he challenge of scheduling showings around vacationing sellers and buyers usually makes the summer real estate market more laid-back than the frenzied spring. But not this year—especially for luxury properties, and for some surprising reasons. Baird & Warner broker Sherri Hoke and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices KoenigRubloff Realty Group broker Francesca Rose give us the inside story.

What’s impacting the market right now?

Francesca Rose: In Chicago, there’s a low barrier to entry for international buyers. So now local buyers are getting a lot of competition from abroad, especially the French, Chinese, and

146 michiganavemag.com

Indians. They face tax or stability issues at home and see the value of owning second or third homes or investment property here.

Sherri Hoke: Buyers were waiting for the market to hit bottom, then they were going to pounce. But they missed it. Even though year-over-year singlefamily home prices are up only about 12 percent in general, according to the latest [CoreLogic] Home Price Index Report, in the most desirable neighborhoods it’s much higher. So now everybody’s decided to buy at the same time because they realize prices aren’t going to go back down.

What’s different about this year’s tactics?

SH: Bidding wars have gone a step further, and buyers are using escalation clauses [which auto-

matically boost a price by a set amount in a tied transaction] to beat the competition. But so many listings are sold before they hit the MLS. How does that happen so frequently?

FR: We’re all networking like never before to fulfill demand, so we let other brokers know what our clients are looking for. Technology, and new websites like the Top Agent Network, makes this possible. So new properties get shown—and sold—before they’re listed.

What does that mean for pricing?

SH: There was a cost to waiting. I had clients who kept getting outbid last year, so they rented in River North. But now prices are up between 15 and 20 percent, and they’re priced out of the market. Homes selling in West Town two years ago for around $800,000 are now priced between $900,000 and $1 million.

FR: I’m seeing pricing that’s close to, if not higher than, what we saw before 2008. The perfect example is 600 North Fairbanks. I had a listing there; the deal fell through; we put it back on the market for $25,000 more. It sold immediately.

Where are prices rising the most?

SH: The developing areas surrounding downtown. Right now, homes often go above ask in River North, and in the West Loop, which has been the least overvalued area, prices are rising quickly. Nobu Hotel and Restaurant and Soho House are coming to the area. Google is about to open a new office there. John Buck just bought the headquarters of H 2 O Plus and he might build up to 500 residential units there.

FR: Buyers are looking farther out in every direction. Even Logan Square is becoming expensive.

Now Smith Park is like Logan Square. Hipsters and young families are heading there. Millennials want to work, live, and play in the same area.

Francesca Rose, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices KoenigRubloff Realty Group, 2301 N. Clark St., #202, 312-350-4900; koenigrubloff.com. Sherri Hoke, Baird & Warner, 737 N. Michigan Ave., 310-909-4550; bairdwarner.com MA

top: The view from 600 North Fairbanks. above: Francesca Rose (left) and Sherri Hoke

Rising Values. Energetic Market.

NOW is the time to take advantage!

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

Top 3% of Coldwell Banker Agents Globally 1 Home Sold or Leased Every 4.74 days* F EATURED P ROPERTIES

CHICAGO’S BEST SALUMERIA BAR SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE NEW MENU, NEW LOOK

1095 S. Windhill Dr.

3028 N. Sawyer

5 bedroom, 4.1 bath $849,900

4 bedroom, 3.1 bath $699,000

Co-Listed with Vicki MacKinnon

Co-Listed with Jennifer Ames

2834 w. Henderson

2707 N. Lincoln #L

4 bedroom, 3.1 bath $525,000

3 bedroom + den, 3 bath $3,800/month

ACCLAIMED CHEF

Contact me today for a private meeting!

773.517. 6585 Scott.Curcio@cbexchange.com ScottCurcio.com | @ScottCurcio

*All homes sold and leased 1/1/13-12/31/13.

437 N Rush Street | 312.222.0101 | www.437Rush.com

©2014 Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate LLC. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Operated by a subsidiary of NRT LLC. Coldwell Banker and the Coldwell Banker Logo are registered service marks owned by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Real estate agents affiliated with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.

HELP THE OCEANS CATCH A BREAK WITH CHAMPION BIG WAVE SURFER MAYA GABEIRA

Maya fearlessly conquered the largest wave ever surfed by a woman.

Her next challenge? To protect the ocean she calls home. Our oceans are in trouble from threats like overfshing and climate change and they need our help. Join Maya and Oceana and let’s help the oceans catch a break.

www.oceana.org/catchabreak

Maya Gabeira surfs the infamous swell at North Shore, Oahu Hawaii

WWW.OCEANA.ORG/CATCHABREAK

•

•

•

•

Branding and design that shift your results higher.

Chicago 520 North Dearborn St. 312-521-5100 ADDITIONAL LOCATIONS: 3 LOCATIONS IN SCOTTSDALE, AZ NEWPORT BEACH, CA

LAS VEGAS, NV

COSTA MESA, CA

MALIBU, CA

THOUSAND OAKS, CA

BEVERLY HILLS, CA

B r a n d | P r i n t | d i g i ta l

PALM DESERT, CA

www.UpShiftCreative.com www.MastrosRestaurants.com •

MastrosRestaurants •

@MastrosOfcial

I n p r I n t. o n l I n e . I n l I f e .

Art BAsel MiAMi BeAch | Aspen peAk | Austin wAy | Boston coMMon | cApitol File | GothAM | hAMptons los AnGeles conFidentiAl | the MAll At short hills | MichiGAn Avenue | oceAn drive | philAdelphiA style | veGAs | wynn

nichemedia.net

CHEF PASCAL LORANGE & THE FLAVORS OF THE FRENCH RIVIERA

FIG & OLIVE is about passion for the best olive oils, favors, and cuisine from the Riviera & Coastal regions of the South of France, Italy, and Spain.

FIG & OLIVE | CHICAGO 104 East Oak Street Chicago, IL 60611 312 445 0060 NEW YORK | LOS ANGELES | NEWPORT BEACH | CHICAGO

GUIDE listings

Michigan Avenue 101

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF TRAVELLE

LOOK NO FURTHER FOR CHICAGOLAND’S MOST SIZZLING RESTAURANTS, BARS, AND BOUTIQUES. Dine A10 Matthias Merges inspires Hyde Park foodies with plates small and large. 1462 E. 53rd St., 773-288-1010; a10hydepark.com Baffo Eataly gets elevated at this fine restaurant and enoteca. 44 E. Grand Ave., 312-521-8701; bafforistorante.com Bottlefork Four Seasons alum Kevin Hickey teams with Rockit Ranch Productions for creative cuisine and cocktails in River North. 441 N. Clark St., 312-955-1900; bottlefork.com Brindille Veteran chef Carrie Nahabedian offers a taste of Paris in River North. 534 N. Clark St., 312-595-1616; brindille-chicago.com Bull & Bear Don’t miss the addictive griddled salami sandwich at this sleek haunt near the Merchandise Mart. 431 N. Wells St., 312-527-5973; bullbearbar.com Café des Architectes Fine French fare in a sophisticated Sofitel setting. 20 E. Chestnut St., 312-324-4063; cafedesarchitectes.com Carnivale Latin flavor in an updated Technicolor West Loop space. 702 W. Fulton Market, 312-850-5005; carnivalechicago.com Chicago Chop House Go old school at this clubby River North steakhouse classic. 60 W. Ontario St., 312-787-7100; chicagochophouse.com Chicago Cut Steakhouse Colossal steaks and shellfish in a sleek riverside location.

300 N. LaSalle St., 312-329-1800; chicagocutsteakhouse.com Cicchetti Michael Sheerin (Trencherman) brings Italian small plates to Streeterville. 671 N. St. Clair St., 312-642-1800; cicchettirestaurant.com Cocello Of-the-moment restaurateur Brendan Sodikoff takes on Italian. 354 W. Hubbard St., 312-888-9195 Coppervine Just Grapes owner Don Sritong brings food pairings to Lincoln Park with some help from chef Michael Taus. 1962 N. Halsted St., 773-935-1000; coppervinechicago.com The Dawson Salute Chicago’s industrial past at this pairing-driven hot spot in River West. 730 W. Grand Ave., 312-243-8955; the-dawson.com

ELLE ON THE RIVER Tacos get the five-star treatment at The Langham’s new riverside restaurant, where chef Tim Graham crafts Mediterranean-style iterations with Calabrian mahimahi and chermoula braised pork shoulder.

330 N. Wabash Ave., 312-923-7705; travellechicago.com

Doc B’s Fresh Kitchen Feel-good fare tucked away on Walton Street. 100 E. Walton St., 312-626-1300; docbsfreshkitchen.com Dusek’s Board & Beer Longman & Eagle duo Bruce Finkelman and Craig Golden transform Thalia Hall with this new Pilsen destination.

1227 W. 18th St., 312-526-3851; dusekschicago.com Eddie V’s Prime Seafood The Shops at North Bridge gets a new big fish, featuring Scottish salmon and Chilean sea bass. 521 N. Rush St., 312-595-1114; eddiev.com Found Kitchen and Social House American fare with a conscience. 1631 Chicago Ave., Evanston, 847-868-8945; foundkitchen.com Fulton Market Kitchen Art, cuisine, and cocktails collide in the West Loop. 311 N. Sangamon St., 312-733-6900; fultonmarketkitchen.com

Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse Enjoy the finest people-watching in town.

1028 N. Rush St., 312-266-8999; gibsonssteakhouse.com Grace Curtis Duffy scores four stars with this elegant spot. 652 W. Randolph St., 312-234-9494; grace-restaurant.com Green Street Smoked Meats Texas-style brisket tucked away from Restaurant Row. 112 N. Green St., 312-754-0431 Hubbard Inn Head to Hubbard Street for small plates like seared scallops and chickpea crêpes. 110 W. Hubbard St., 312-222-1331; hubbardinn.com IO Urban Roofscape Ascend to the Godfrey Hotel’s fourth-floor rooftop lounge for an unparalleled vantage point. 127 W. Huron St., 312-649-2000; godfreyhotelchicago.com Jellyfish Late-night sushi in a stunning atrium overlooking Rush Street. 1009 N. Rush St., 312-660-3111; jellyfishchicago.com Kinmont Sustainable seafood from the team behind Nellcôte and Old Town Social. 419 W. Superior St., 312-915-0011; kinmontrestaurant.com Le Pain Quotidien A charming Belgian bakery hits the Gold Coast with baguettes and tartines aplenty. 10 E. Delaware Pl.; lepainquotidien LYFE Kitchen Gluten-free, vegan, and all-around healthy fare from star chefs Art Smith and Tal Ronnen. 413 N. Clark St., 312-836-5933; restaurant.lyfekitchen.com Mastro’s Steakhouse A glitzy River North destination for steaks and sushi. 520 N. Dearborn St., 312-521-5100; mastrosrestaurants.com Morton’s The Steakhouse The Chicago original.

1050 N. State St., 312-266-4820; mortons.com Pearl Tavern Come for the oysters but stay for the lobster roll at this spot on the cusp of the Loop. 180 N. Wacker Dr., 312-629-1030; pearltavern.com Phil Stefani’s 437 Rush The River North institution unveils a sleek look and a new salumeria. 437 N. Rush St., 312-222-0101; philstefanis437rush.com continued on page 154

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

153

Guide listings

Fig & Olive The French Riviera meets the Gold Coast at this new multilevel eatery overlooking Oak Street, with menu highlights including prosciutto tartine (pictured). 104 E. Oak St.; figandolive.com

Sepia Michelin-starred cuisine by Executive Chef Andrew Zimmerman. 123 N. Jefferson St., 312-441-1920; sepiachicago.com Siena Tavern Top Chef alum Fabio Viviani conquers the Windy City. 51 W. Kinzie St., 312-595-1322; sienatavern.com Sophie’s Savor jumbo lump crab cakes, Wagyu burgers, and a killer view of the Mag Mile at this chic oasis in Saks Fifth Avenue. 700 N. Michigan Ave., 7th Fl., 312-525-3400; sophies.com Spiaggia Exquisite Italian fare in an iconic Magnificent Mile space. 980 N. Michigan Ave.,

154 michiganavemag.com

2nd Fl., 312-280-2750; spiaggiarestaurant.com Tanta A taste of Peru comes to the Windy City. 118 W. Grand Ave., 312-222-9700; tantachicago.com Travelle A stunning Mediterranean destination in the super-sleek Langham Hotel. 330 N. Wabash Ave., 312-923-9988; travellechicago.com Untitled An impeccably outfitted underground food-and-drink parlor with a speakeasy vibe.

111 W. Kinzie St., 312-880-1511; untitledchicago.com Drink 52Eighty Signature cocktails at MileNorth Hotel’s new rooftop destination. 166 E. Superior St., 312-787-6000; 52eightylounge.com Adamus Savor the raspberry ginger mojito at the Silversmith Hotel’s crown jewel of a lounge. 10 S. Wabash Ave., 312-372-7696; silversmithchicagohotel.com The Aviary Twenty-first-century cocktails from the Next team. 955 W. Fulton Market, 312-226-0868; theaviary.com ¡Ay Chiwowa! The Rockit Ranch nightspot serves up killer tacos and more than 80 tequilas. 311 W. Chicago Ave., 312-643-3200; aychiwowa.com The Berkshire Room Old-world cool meets modern mixology at the Acme Hotel’s lounge.

15 E. Ohio St., 312-894-0800; theberkshireroom.com Billy Sunday Imaginative mixed drinks in Logan Square. 3143 W. Logan Blvd., 773-661-2485; billy-sunday.com The Brixton Bar bites and bubbly in Andersonville. 5420 N. Clark St., 773-961-7358 Celeste Heady cocktails are served at this celestial-themed River North supper club. 111 W. Hubbard St., 312-828-9000; celestechicago.com CH Distillery Tour Chicago’s first vodka distillery and try The Tradition, a shot of vodka with a side of rye bread and pickles. 564 W. Randolph St., 312-707-8780; chdistillery.com Double Cross Lounge A new lounge tucked away on the sixth floor of the Kinzie Hotel.

20 W. Kinzie St., 312-395-9000; kinziehotel.com Drumbar Creative cocktails by Alex Renshaw atop the Raffaello Hotel. 201 E. Delaware Pl., 312-924-2531; drumbar.com DryHop Brewers Raise a glass to hops-centric ales in Lakeview. 3155 N. Broadway, 773-857-3155; dryhopchicago.com Fairways Featuring 18 craft beers and a golf lounge with HD simulators. 1141 W. Armitage Ave., 773-698-6020; fairwayschicago.com Jimmy This ’70s-inspired lounge pours clever

The Dec A dozen stories above Streeterville, the Ritz-Carlton’s chic watering hole soars into summer with cocktails like the Chicago Bloody Mary, with Absolut Chicago and Eugene Porter (pictured). 160 E. Pearson St., 312-573-5160; decarestaurant.com

cocktails in a dark, sultry space. 610 N. Rush St., 312-660-7191; jimmyatjames.com Lagunitas Brewing Company The California import hits Pilsen with a 300,000-square-foot brewery. 1843 S. Washtenaw Ave.; lagunitas.com Le Bar This boîte at the Sofitel Chicago Water Tower attracts a premium crowd. 20 E. Chestnut St., 312-324-4000; cafedesarchitectes.com/Le-Bar Links Taproom Craft beer, sausage, and hand-cut fries in Wicker Park. 1559 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-360-7692; linkstaproom.com Lone Wolf Restaurant Row welcomes a new watering hole with this tavern from Heisler Hospitality. 806 W. Randolph St., 312-600-9391 Maude’s Liquor Bar This West Loop hot spot offers whiskey shots aplenty. 840 W. Randolph St., 312-243-9712; maudesliquorbar.com Packing House A Restaurant Row rooftop with 360-degree views of the skyline. 1113 W. Randolph St., 312-929-4787; packinghousechicago.com Parliament Opulent River North club. 324 W. Chicago Ave., 312-380-0004; parliamentchicago.com Public House Game day goes gastro at the intersection of State and Kinzie. 400 N. State St., 312-265-1240; publichousechicago.com Roof Climb to this sultry bar atop theWit hotel.

201 N. State St., 312-239-9501; roofonthewit.com Sky Terrace A hidden gem in Streeterville atop the Ivy Hotel. 233 E. Ontario St., 16th Fl., continued on page 156

Photography by Galdones Photography (The Dec)

continued from page 153 Piccolo Sogno Due Chef Tony Priolo brings his signature rustic Italian to River North. 340 N. Clark St., 312-822-0077; piccolosognodue.com Pump Room A Chicago icon returns to its former glory under Ian Schrager. 1301 N. State Pkwy., 312-787-3700; pumproom.com The Radler Craft sausage and aged beer in an open Logan Square space. 2375 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-276-0270; dasradler.com

N EW TO

EV

D

AN

W N TO W N

O

N

Bar/Bat Mitzvahs

Business Meetings

O

ST

Weddings For your elegant event...

Located in vibrant downtown Evanston, the newest ballroom and lounge in Chicago’s North Shore is open and offers the perfect location for weddings, celebrations, bar/ bat mitzvahs and any other social event or corporate meeting that commands that special touch. An elegant lobby leads into the stunning ballroom, setting the stage for your special occasions. With a unique emphasis on custom prepared cuisine created by its experienced culinary team, the Crystal Ballroom & Lounge will be setting new expectations for catered events.

TES NOW Call or click to book now:

847.570.4400 or CrystalEvanston.com 529 Davis St. Evanston

Guide listings

NoMI Garden The Park Hyatt’s outdoor terrace offers an ideal vantage point for imbibing, thanks to dramatic views, a notable wine list, and cocktails like the Concertina (Tito’s Handmade vodka, apricot liquor, fresh peach and lemon verbena syrup, sparkling wine).

800 N. Michigan Ave., 7th Fl., 312-239-4030; hyatt.com/gallery.nomi

Vertigo Sky Lounge The Dana Hotel’s gravity-defying libation destination. 2 W. Erie St., 312-202-6060; vertigoskylounge.com The Violet Hour The daddy of Chicago mixology bars. 1520 N. Damen Ave., 773-252-1500; theviolethour.com

156 michiganavemag.com

Ward Eight A hidden-gem cocktail bar in south Evanston. 629 Howard St., Evanston, 847-420-7353; wardeight.com Shop Barbour Cheers to the British retailer’s new Gold Coast outpost. 54 E. Walton St., 312-944-0250; barbour.com/us Barneys New York The Midwest flagship stocks heavy hitters like Balenciaga and Proenza Schouler. 15 E. Oak St., 312-587-1700; barneys.com Bloomingdale’s Six levels of chic looks by contemporary designers. 900 N. Michigan Ave., 312-440-4460; bloomingdales.com Brioni Custom Italian suiting hits Walton Street. 12 E. Walton St., 312-649-9100; brioni.com Buccellati Handcrafted baubles from Milan.

62 E. Oak St., 312-600-9224; buccellati.com Burberry Chicago finds its London calling at the gleaming Michigan Avenue flagship. 633 N. Michigan Ave., 312-787-2500; us.burberry.com Charles Tyrwhitt This British mainstay hits the Financial District with classic shirting and suiting. 208 S. LaSalle St., 312-585-0700; ctshirts.com CH Carolina Herrera Timeless silhouettes and pops of color in a lovely Oak Street space.

70 E. Oak St., 312-988-9339; carolinaherrera.com Christian Louboutin Paint the town red with fabulous pumps. 58 E. Oak St., 312-337-8200; christianlouboutin.com Ermenegildo Zegna Tailored suits for the man-about-town. 540 N. Michigan Ave., 312-587-9660; zegna.com Escada Add some elegance to your wardrobe with European-inspired designs. 51 E. Oak St., 312-915-0500; escada.com Etro The Italian label’s Midwest debut.

5220 Fashion Outlets Way, 2nd Fl., Rosemont, 847-678-9730; etro.com Graff Diamonds Brilliant baubles in the Gold Coast. 103 E. Oak St., 312-604-1000; graffdiamonds.com Henri Bendel An eye-popping playground of jewelry and accessories. 845 N. Michigan Ave., 2nd Fl., 312-951-1928; henribendel.com Hermès The ultimate in aspiration, straight from Paris. 25 E. Oak St., 312-787-8175; hermes.com Ikram Definitive fashions from Chicago’s own style maven Ikram Goldman. 15 E. Huron St., 312-587-1000; ikram.com J. Crew Jenna Lyons–approved staples in a brand-new space. 900 N. Michigan Ave., 2nd Fl., 312-751-2739; jcrew.com

Alice and Olivia This witty label makes a head-turning debut on the Mag Mile, with rainbows of dresses and skirts complementing original artwork by designer Stacey Bendet. 919 N. Michigan Ave., 312-273-1254; aliceandolivia.com

Louis Vuitton Monogrammed leather bags and luxury trunks galore. 700 N. Michigan Ave., 312-255-0470; louisvuitton.com LuLu’s on the Avenue An unmatched selection of vintage jewelry and couture. 900 N. Michigan Ave., 3rd Fl., 312-888-9149; lulusbellekay.com Maje Parisian chic hits Oak Street. 100 E. Oak St., 312-649-9228; us.maje.com Marshall Pierce & Company This familyowned jeweler adds sparkle to Chicago. 335 N. Michigan Ave., 312-782-4403; marshallpierce.com Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Sleek home furnishings in Lincoln Park. 1555 N. Halsted St., 312-397-3135; mgbwhome.com Neiman Marcus Home to haute names like Tom Ford and Alexander McQueen. 737 N. Michigan Ave., 312-642-5900; neimanmarcus.com Porsche Design Luxe looks in The Shops at North Bridge. 520 N. Michigan Ave., 2nd Fl., 312-321-0911; porsche-design.com Saint Laurent The iconic label returns to Chicago with a sleek boutique designed by creative director Hedi Slimane. 11 E. Walton St., 312-202-0166; ysl.com Salvatore Ferragamo Put your best foot forward in classic Italian designs. 645 N. Michigan Ave., 312-397-0464; ferragamo.com Tom Ford The new king of Oak Street. 66 E. Oak St., 312-605-5041; tomford.com Tommy Bahama Island fever along the Mag Mile. 520 N. Michigan Ave., 2nd Fl., 312-644-8388; tommybahama.com MA

Photography by Anthony Tahlier (NoMI); courtesy of Alice + Olivia by Stacey Bendet (Alice)

continued from page 154 312-335-5444; ivyskyterrace.com Sportsman’s Club This Humboldt Park tavern offers wine, beer, and cocktails crafted by former Aviary barman Jeff Donahue.

948 N. Western Ave., 872-206-8054; drinkingandgathering.com Temperance Beer Company Enjoy an Evenfall Imperial Red ale in the tap room of Evanston’s first craft brewery. 2000 Dempster St., 847-864-1000; temperancebeer.com Tippling Hall Late-night comfort food from the buzzworthy beverage group Tippling Bros.

646 N. Franklin St., Ste. 200, 312-448-9922; tipplinghall.com The Underground Rockit Ranch Productions’ subterranean nightclub smash. 56 W. Illinois St., 312-943-7600; theundergroundchicago.com

THANKS YOU FOR A RECORD-BREAKING NIGHT

before 1

2

actual patient

actual patient

1

2

actual patient

actual patient

after After 8 hours of Expert Hair Restoration work with Dr. Yates, you can look like this in 6 months!

NO SCARS. NO PAIN. NO STITCHES.

SPONSORS RAVINIA ASSOCIATES 25TH ANNIVERSARY SPONSOR Altair Advisers COCKTAIL RECEPTION SPONSOR U.S. Bank MUSIC MATTERS CHALLENGE SPONSOR Evergreen Real Estate Services, LLC PROGRAM BENEFACTOR Northern Trust COMMUNITY BENEFACTORS Donlen, a Hertz Company GATX Corporation SCHOOL BENEFACTORS Arlington Computer Products Assurance Agency, LTD. – Kevin Phillips Brandes Investment Partners: John P. Kelly Clark Street Development

Dentons Hot Rooms, A Division of Hotel Reservation Management Te Integer Group Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP Linden Group Health Services MC Squared Energy Services Meridian Compensation Partners, LLC Mid-America Real Estate Corporation North Shore Dentistry for Children RBC Wealth Management Risetime ToughtWorks MEDIA SUPPORT Michigan Avenue Magazine MAJOR IN-KIND SUPPORT Beam Suntory Terlato Wines, Ofcial Wine Sponsor of Ravinia United Airlines, Ofcial Airline of Ravinia Viso Graphic

Congratulations David B. Weinberg

We only offer New Technology with the ARTAS Robotic Hair Transplant System and FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction), PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) and Stem Cell Therapy

DO YOU STRUGGLE with HAIR LOSS?

312-261-0872 dryateshairscience.com 230 E. Center Dr. Ste. 102, Vernon Hills

JUNE 30 - JULY 22: PROJECT WINDOWS

BULL & BEAR’S ‘DOG DAYS OF SUMMER’

Together with Oak Street Design and the Art Institute of Chicago, Michigan Avenue magazine invites you to UNTHINK your shopping experience this summer, as 50 of the city’s top retailers from Michigan Avenue, Oak Street and Chicago’s Loop participate in a visual competition inspired by one of the largest cultural events of the summer, Magritte: Te Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926 - 1938.

JULY 21-27 In celebration of National Hot Dog Day, River North’s popular sports bar and eatery, Bull & Bear, will bring back the highly anticipated “Dog Days of Summer,” for a weeklong celebration with fve, one-of-a-kind hot dogs exclusively available each day of the week. Can’t decide on which one? Try them all by ordering the Frank Plank, ofering the mini-versions daily.

Vote June 30-July 22 MichiganAveMag.com/ ProjectWindows

Buccellati, Glasses, Ltd, Ike Behar, The Perfect Setting

312.527.5973 www.bullbearbar.com/hotdogweek

Visit facebook.com/oakstreetdesign #ProjectWindows2014

NOT TO BE MISSED EVENTS • HAPPENINGS • PROMOTIONS

Photo: Maureen Schulman Model: Baize Buzan Stylist: Laurie Davis

LULU’S VINTAGE

SIMON PREMIUM OUTLETS SHOPPING THAT’S ALWAYS WORTH THE TRIP Discover Simon Premium Outlets at three area locations. Shop Chicago Premium Outlets (Aurora, IL), Lighthouse Place Premium Outlets (Michigan City, IN) and Pleasant Prairie Premium Outlets (Pleasant Prairie, WI) and save 25% to 65% every day on your favorite designer and name brands.

For more information and to join the free VIP Shopper Club, visit premiumoutlets.com

WALTER E. SMITHE PROMENADE DRAWER CHEST $2119 Its architectural façade and clever pull placements make this 8-drawer chest a standout for any room. smithe.com

Summer in the city...the time of year when making a statement is as easy as pairing a simple tank top with a lot of great jewelry. Laurie Davis, owner and curator of LuLu’s Vintage, located at the 900 N. Michigan Shops 3rd foor, likes to mix it up with color and texture.

LuLu’s Vintage is Chicago’s top vintage store, specializing in jewelry and special occasion dresses, hats and handbags from the 1920’s-1980’s, along with a handpicked grouping of contemporary jewelery designers. lulusvintagestore.com | 312.888.9149 @lulusvintage on Instagram

Voted #1 Steakhouse In America Tom Horan's Top Ten Club Four Consecutive Years Best of Award of Excellence Wine Spectator HIGH EXCELLENT Rating Zagat's Guide Best Steakhouse Wine List Best Boneless New York Strip Chicago Magazine DiRoNA Chicago Sun-Times

 Chicago Tribune



PRIME STEAKS. LEGENDARY SERVICE. Fine Wine • Private Dining • Exceptional Menu

“The Original” State Street 1050 N. State St. 312.266.4820

60 West Ontario Street, Chicago

Chicago (Downtown) 65 E. Wacker Place 312.201.0410

Naperville

1751 Freedom Dr. 630.577.1372

Northbrook

699 Skokie Blvd.

847.205.5111

312-787-7100

chicagochophouse.com mortons.com

Rosemont

9525 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. 847.678.5155

Schaumburg

1470 McConnor Pkwy.

847.413.8771

No Place Like Home NO FAIR ESCAPING TO A SUMMER VILLA WHEN THE GOING GETS HOT—REAL CHICAGOANS STAY IN TOWN TO SWEAT IT OUT. BY PAIGE WISER

Onward!

160

MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM

ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL O’LEARY

W

hen Windy City residents speak of their summer homes, they’re not talking about a cozy little bungalow they’ve got tucked away up in the far reaches of Andersonville. They’re not talking about Chicago at all. They mean Italy, or France. They mean Not Here. But really, that’s so last eon. Why retreat to a foreign villa just as the sun comes out? Provence is lovely, but there’s no East Bank Club, and everybody is speaking the wrong language. And rustic food isn’t as charming as you remember it, especially if you’re a smart traveler who tops all entrées with a healthy dollop of hand sanitizer.

Yes, maybe it’s sour grapes, but isn’t that what Tuscany is famous for?

Even when travel experts patriotically suggest summering on your own continent, Chicago gets nary a mention. They will direct you to trendy spots like Gatlinburg, Tennessee, or Cumberland Island, Georgia. As if Chicago isn’t a summer paradise. You want sand? Welcome to North Avenue Beach—just beware of flying volleyballs. You want limpid waters? Our E. coli levels only occasionally mandate a beach shutdown. You want exotic foods? Try Moto—or, depending on your tastes and flatware preferences, Medieval Times. And here’s a bonus: Thrill seekers will find that braving the heat in Chicago is officially considered an extreme sport.

Chicago in the summer means rooftop decks, the Printers Row Lit Fest, and heat lightning.

It means movies in the park, yoga in the park, dancing in the park, and trying to find enough girls to play on your softball team in the park. Boat hopping. Bike rides. And from the Blues Festival to Lollapalooza, the best music on the planet. So much music. If there were such a thing as too much music, it would be too much music.

If you must leave town, try a jaunt to Lake Geneva, which is exactly like Chicago except without the buildings, the people, or the underperforming sports teams. Or drive to Michigan’s Harbor Country, where the wealthy “rough it” in much the same way Marie Antoinette would frolic in her backyard play village. But stick close to home, because summer in Chicago is your reward for persevering through that long, hard winter. You deserve this. Blink and you’ll miss it. MA

Can you maintain the life you’ve built?

Is there any other option?

Your home, your family, your business — every part of your life is important. So is the planning to maintain it. We evaluate your portfolio carefully. Then we develop a clear-cut path to help you continue down the one you’ve already mapped out.

For Every Moment.

To learn more, go to bmoprivatebank.com

Financial Planning • Investment Management • Private Banking • Trust & Estate Services • Philanthropic Planning

BMO Private Bank is a brand name used in the United States by BMO Harris Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Not all products and services are available in every state and/or location.

Investment products are NOT FDIC INSURED—MAY LOSE VALUE—CARRY NO BANK GUARANTEE. ©2014 BMO Financial Corp.