Hard to pigeonhole, Summer Thornton’s work is easy to appreciate. Typically, if such a word is applied to a designer who delights in surprising, her work can be described as courageous and colourful. For a couple’s apartment in a significant architectural co-op building in Chicago, Summer allowed her signature sense of wonder, sensory saturation and escape to unfold. Originally designed in 1931 by Rosario Candela, the building has an important architectural lineage – a fact Summer felt it was important to acknowledge.
‘We wanted to honour that but bring a freshness to the decorating that made it feel current.’ Bridging past and present, as well as the pair’s divergent personal tastes, was a challenge the designer took in her stride. While he is something of a perfectionist and prefers order, she leans towards whimsy and creativity.
The resulting compromise is an example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts – a classical envelope containing a riot of plush texture and sumptuous colour. ‘She really wanted the home to feel like a jewellery box. Something that surprised and delighted with colour around every corner. This is their city house, and it needed to feel dressy, as if it were getting ready for a night on the town. I am a maximalist, so of course I embraced the brief,’ says summer. The designer rarely works within the confines of one genre or style, so dipping into myriad influences was par for the course.
‘People often have a hard time describing my work. It is traditional but also modern. sophisticated but also comfortable. I truly pull from a worldwide aesthetic,’ she says. You can see this at play in the eclectic furniture, dynamic finishes and varied art selection that unfolds throughout. ‘We source furniture from across the globe. In 2021, we bought from every continent except Antarctica.’ It is no wonder that the apartment feels like it has the power to transport. She does this through unapologetic layering – in a literal and figurative sense. A complex palette, play of textures and patterns, and pieces of varying provenance weave together a story, where each space is a new chapter, bookended by the consistently classical architectural shell. ‘I enjoy when each room makes its own statement, but when all the rooms together create the larger picture. I think in terms of narratives.
What story do we want this home to tell? But stories have twists and turns in the plot, and a good home is the same,’ she says. The wall treatments in particular play a prominent role in the storytelling – ranging from high-gloss to luxe silk damask, dreamy hand-painted scenes and lacquered ceilings designed to reflect the water outside and engage the senses (in particular, two de Gournay wallpapers – the ‘Kiso Mountains’ in the living room and ‘Pineapple silk damask’ in the bedroom). ‘When you layer them together in a space, it causes the eye to dance around.
Many people balance a room by removing things, I do the opposite – I balance strong design elements with other strong design elements.’ Summer’s objective here is to immerse you: ‘every home we create takes you on a fantastical adventure beyond reality. I want the effect to be, “Is this real, or am I dreaming?”’ The art sourcing and curation help to continue this narrative. Works by Alex Katz – who Summer also collects in a personal capacity – and various other surrealist and abstract works help to weave the dreamlike narrative. ‘The surrealist pieces help underscore that we are colouring outside the lines a bit, that things are not quite what they seem, that you may have drunk a magic potion that distorts reality. It is dreamy and different. Just like Wonderland.’
Words by Julia Freemantle | Styling by Mieke Ten Have
