June 28, 2026This Mother-Daughter Design Duo Gave an Apartment in a Chicago Grande Dame a Dramatic Facelift
Chicago interior designer Karen Pearson had already completed four homes for her clients, among her most loyal, when they returned to her studio, JP Interiors, to ask for her help with a fifth. The project wouldn’t be like any of the previous ones, however — and not just because every commission she takes on is unique.
This project would also be the rare one she would be handling together with her daughter, Haley, who joined the firm — which the elder Pearson founded nearly four decades ago with Blaine Johnson — in 2017. Now JP’s design director, Haley generally works on projects separately from her mother. But this one, Karen thought, would benefit from multigenerational collaboration. Fortunately, the duo’s schedules aligned to make that possible.
The 4,200-square-foot, four-bedroom apartment — in a storied high-rise co-op on Chicago’s Gold Coast designed by Rosario Candela in 1927 — “needed and deserved both of us,” says Karen, adding, “Haley has her finger on the pulse of what’s current, the best sources to go to, the best new vendors.” Haley, for her part, notes that her mother brought to the commission a deep understanding not only of the clients — developed across decades and various settings — but also of Chicago architecture and interiors, both classic and contemporary. The project would tap into both.
The project represented the beginning of a new chapter for the clients, a well-traveled couple with four children, who were relocating to this decidedly urban environment from a single-family house elsewhere in the city. As they were on the cusp of becoming empty nesters, “this was an opportunity to start from scratch” at a different stage in their lives, Haley says. “It felt like they were moving from their family house to their grown-up apartment.”
Still, the couple’s college-age brood would return often, to spend quality time with their parents and with their grandmother, who has long had an apartment in the same building. (Her terrace garden is even visible from one of the clients’ new bedrooms.)
The two generations of Pearsons were the perfect people to help the clients navigate these significant changes, aesthetic as well as familial. “The fact that we knew them so well helped drive what we did with each room and each space,” Karen says. “That was key.” Adds Haley, “We don’t have a specific style. We lean toward the traditional, but we’re always interested in how we can mix it up.”
The wife likes color, so Haley set out, she says, to ensure that “every room had its own palette and purpose.” The resulting scheme is subtle yet expressive, setting the appropriate mood for each space. A dusty green combined with dark blue trim gives way to a golden hue to transition into the home, for instance, while neutral, warm backdrops give some of the larger public spaces an expansive feel, and cool shades infuse bedrooms with calm. Far from being being jarring, these chromatic shifts cohere in a seamless tonal flow.
Since their kids are now all grown and largely out of the house, the couple also wanted their new home to have a more mature look than their previous ones had. And they were eager to take some decor risks.
“They already had a collection of antiques, so it felt really natural to bring in new funky pieces to breathe in new life and contrast,” Haley says about her approach to sourcing, which she managed for the project. Certain bold moves helped set the stylistic direction, from replacing outdated recessed lighting with artful fixtures by makers like Paul Ferrante and Urban Electric Co. to embracing a judicious use of pattern. Karen served as lead designer and coordinated with the general contractor, Mark Fraser, to refine the apartment’s flow, layout and sensibility in partnership with the clients.
For the Pearsons, the first order of business was to address the lack of a proper entrance. Because the original Candela-designed foyer had fallen victim to a previous renovation, the elevator from the ground-floor lobby simply opened into the dining room. To correct this, they relocated the dining area, converting part of its former square footage into an entry sequence befitting the building’s Art Deco origins.
The petite new elevator lobby now features a vintage hanging alabaster basin pendant found on 1stDibs, black granite floors with geometric brass inlay and green walls defined with molding loosely informed by the entryways of apartment buildings in Milan — a city the Pearsons visited around the time the project began.
From here, an iron-and-glass door leads to a larger foyer, clad in a Japanese-inspired mural wallpaper. A curvaceous Murano glass–framed mirror from Galerie Glustin complements a Porta Romana handblown glass table lamp that sits on a rich wooden console with jauntily off-center legs. Spirited Sputnik-style pendants from Jean de Merry twinkle above.
Just off the foyer is a new powder room, whose hand-blown glass sconces, also from Galerie Glustin, give the rusty-hued, graphic wallpaper a soft glow, adding to the compact space’s jewel-box feel. All these elements, Karen says, are “in keeping with the building and its age. They’re elegant, like the apartments themselves.”
The Pearsons transformed the remainder of the former dining room into a parlor, with a grand piano and curved sofa forming a welcoming vignette atop a circular rug. The lines of a Patricia Urquiola–designed coffee table composed of striped marble and onyx plays off the geometry of the parquet flooring.
Immediately adjacent, the original living room was reimagined to contain both dining and sitting areas. The former accommodates a custom rosewood dining table by Keith Fritz with painted gold-leaf accents, occupying a windowed corner overlooking Lake Michigan. “They love the lake view and watching the sunrise,” Haley says of the clients.
Armchairs from South Loop Loft surround the table, which provides a comfortable surface for morning rituals. A Lindsey Adelman porcelain and metal lighting fixture dangles above like a mobile sculpture. “While we love an impactful chandelier, this one didn’t take away from their view,” Haley says.
In the sitting area — which, Haley says, “we wanted to feel like a space they could entertain in year-round” — a pair of 1940s Lorin Jackson for Grosfeld House lacquered chests sourced from 1stDibs stand on either side of the fireplace. Above hangs a Losanghe mirror by Ongaro e FuGA flanked by abstract paintings by Ethan Cook. The ceiling is lacquered a pale blue, a subtle reference to the nearby lake.
The furniture arrangement here is flexible, comprising a set of sumptuous custom dark-blue-mohair chairs and a pair of armchairs wrapped in Jim Thompson cut velvet, grounded by a slick black-stone cocktail table from Holly Hunt. The goal was to establish “a nice setting for Christmas decor but also to enjoy in the summer, with something that felt light,” Haley says.
When not convening in this formal living room, the family retires to the bookshelf-lined maroon-lacquered library, where they can relax on a custom sectional upholstered in Zimmer + Rohde fabric or nubby wood-framed swivel chairs by Jasper from Michael S. Smith. Built-ins equipped with Urban Electric picture lights display books and personal mementos, all overseen by a whimsical, celestial-inspired Paul Ferrante lighting fixture.
In the primary bedroom, the Pearsons deployed cooler gray-lilac shades, balancing the wife’s preference for color against the need for serenity. “With the south- and west-facing light, it really changes throughout the day, but mostly leans into a soft lilac,” Haley says of the tonality of the wall paint, Romo silk wallpaper and Sandra Jordan drapery.
A neutral Kerry Joyce fabric softens the bespoke rectilinear upholstered bed frame, next to which weighty Michael Cleary lacquered nightstands and Hector Finch glass lamps add a relatively traditional touch.
On this project, the combined efforts of clients and designers helped develop and deepen relationships across generations. “It was a great experience working with them because they’re comfortable with and have full confidence in us,” Haley says. “They were getting the new school and the old school.”
