Craig & Company; Costello Studio: Gilded Leather Wall Panels

As part of a two-year residential renovation in a building on Chicago’s East Lake Shore Drive, Craig & Company and Costello Studio created a statement-making leather wall treatment for the foyer that reflects the client’s love of learning and literature.

The treatment, which features an embossed gold floral motif, emulates the cover of an antique leather-bound volume.

“We don’t often upholster walls with leather, in fact, I think we’ve only done it one other time, and that was about 25 years ago,” says architect Joan Craig, who founded the eponymous company that has offices in Chicago and New York. “In this case, it’s the very expression of who the clients are—literate, passionate about the power of books, libraries, free speech, and education.”

Craig, AIA, LEED AP, came up with the idea of making the entry, which leads to a long library-like hallway lined with books, and asked leather artisan Michele Costello, whose namesake firm is in Quogue, New York, to collaborate, execute the design, and install the panels.

“I envisioned a library table piled high with books and a beautiful lantern in the room,” Craig says.

The design of the panels Costello and Craig & Company collaborated on was inspired by historical book bindings as well as the foyer’s architectural elements, notably the oak-leaf branches of the entry door grille, the floral motifs of the antique sconces, the bold black mantel, and the graphic floor pattern.

“The challenge became refining a design concept that would be integrated seamlessly in its context without becoming reductive,” says Taylor Stein, an associate partner at Craig & Company. “The design that was ultimately executed, a stylized leaf with exacting underlying geometries that seamlessly integrates into a refined linear border, was one that achieved the perfect balance between floral and geometric.”

Although the design’s leaf shape does not replicate the floral elements in the sconces or door grille, it is complementary.

“The circle within the leaf and the dots marking the intersection of lines in the corner continue the visual texture created by the medallions in the door grille and the mirror panel opposite,” Craig says. “The nuanced variation of the lines in the border recalls the patterns of light and shadow on architectural moldings.”

In this project, which Costello says is “one of the most remarkable of my 40-year-career,” a series of oversized metal embossing plates was produced from the final collaborative artwork, and they were used to hot stamp the 22-karat gold leaf on the more than 40 leather panels. She spent more than a week meticulously installing them.

“The project was a coordinated dance with all the trades,” Stein says. “It was a careful collaboration.”

Costello adds that “in all the years of working in my trade, it was thrilling and at the same time very humbling to know that I have been able to contribute to this creative effort, something that will be enjoyed and appreciated by this wonderful family, as well as the next, for many years to come.”

In the glow of the entry’s roaring fire, the gilded elements on the deep forest green leather panels glimmer softly, creating a cozy and inviting space.

“The entry hall, which gives the first impression of the condo, really embodies who the homeowner is,” Stein says. TB