This tower carries a pedigree most remodels never touch. Completed in 1926, it was hailed that year by the Chicago Tribune as the largest and finest apartment building in the city, and its Beaux-Arts planning — the careful relationship of every part to the whole — remains the residence’s greatest asset. The client had inherited the fifteenth-floor home after more than forty years in her family, and her brief was Old Hollywood: warm, gracious, and made for entertaining.

The dining room was the apartment’s historical treasure, its walls clad in quarter-figured anigre quoted at over $1,000 a yard. Much of the original molding had been lost or had fallen into disrepair, so our team custom-fabricated the wood and plaster profiles, matched them to the 1926 detailing, and patch-repaired the assembly until the seams disappeared. The original hardwood was restored, and discreet contemporary lighting was introduced to bring out the millwork.

Elsewhere, the work was reinvention. The living room had been reduced to a white box — white walls, white ceiling, white floor, white millwork — and Lake Michigan, its finest feature, was lost in the glare. The palette was warmed, a silver-leaf ceiling and mid-century furnishings were introduced, the walls were skim-coated to a luxurious finish, to allow every tone and color to draw the eye toward the water. The primary bath demanded precision: the structural concrete subfloor was ground by hand to form a zero threshold into the bedroom, and the original cast-iron radiators were removed offsite, refurbished, and reset.

A fifteenth-floor residence in a 1926 high-rise carries its own logistics: the maid’s room served as the staging area and was therefore the first space demolished, boiler shutdowns were coordinated to free the radiators, and the freight elevator and loading dock were reserved around every delivery.

Old Hollywood was never built here; it was uncovered — a measured restoration that readied the residence for another generation of the family that has held it for forty years.