Christmas is over. You didn`t get what you wanted, but that`s OK; give yourself a present. Here`s the one addition to the home that some would like to make in 1992.
”I want to add a vegetable garden as soon as I`m able,” says Daniel Skoda, new Marshall Field`s president, who just now is settling into a north suburban home. ”I love gardening. It`s a great way to get away from retail and be productive.”
Particularly fond of broccoli, tomatoes and bibb lettuce, Skoda recalls that he had great success growing those vegetables during two previous stints in the Chicago area as manager of Lord & Taylor`s Water Tower store and later as manager of Neiman Marcus on Michigan Avenue.
He left Chicago in 1987 for a post with Neiman Marcus in Dallas, but to his dismay found gardening in Big D wasn`t all that great.
”Too hot and too many bugs,” he reports.
Mark Knauer, who designed the interiors of such restaurants as Tuttaposto, Carolina Crab House and Trattoria No. 10, has a basic wish for his own home.
”I`d love to have a garbage disposer,” he says wistfully. ”I hate taking wet garbage out.”
Alas, he lives in an old house, surrounded by old trees that have sent their roots every-which-way.
”So we`d have a lot of clogging problems unless I tore up the whole front yard. But it sure would be nice just to throw the garbage down a disposer.”
Pat Quinn, who as state treasurer keeps a finger on the state`s financial pulse, thinks he might convince sons Davey, 7, and Patrick, 9, to do a better job keeping their room picked up if he bought them a new bedroom set. He evidently doesn`t know he may be fighting a losing battle when it comes to neatness; but anyway, a desk, dresser and bunk beds for the boys, are No. 1 on his 1992 home wish list.
Leslie Hindman, of Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, wants ”a working fireplace with logs in it, with a beautiful 18th Century marble mantel.”
Karen Meyer, Channel 7 correspondent and advocate for the disabled, wants ”new wooden floors for my house.”
Ramona Austin, assistant curator of African art at the Art Institute of Chicago: ”How about a brand-new kitchen with all the gadgets, a Wolfe stove, a restaurant refrigerator, and I would want it so it would open onto a porch, which I will add on.”
Maggie Daley, wife of Mayor Richard M. Daley, is also looking to make an addition to the kitchen, albeit a humble one. ”I`d like a rice maker.”
Stanley Paul, society orchestra leader, would like vintage Art Deco fabrics for the vintage summer house in Michigan that he is refurbishing:
”I`d like tropical print stuff from the `30s and `40s for the furniture; it`s so hard to find them. With the new stuff they`re making, trying to copy the old, the dye lots are not the same. And some Mission furniture-I was throwing it away five years ago.”
Chuck Nitti, artist-about-town, painter and muralist, has something definitely `90s in mind:
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”I would buy a laser disc playback machine because I would get a full-screen playback on a film and also because I`m crazy-nuts for `Fantasia.`
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Kevin Consey, director and chief executive officer of the Museum of Contemporary Art, would like an additional wine cooler:
”They look similar to a refrigerator, made out of cedar, and maintain constant temperature and humidity, so they`re fairly elaborate. My wife and I collect wines, and last year we bought one that holds 700 bottles and that`s filled; we`re absolutely out of control.”
John Wilson, of the Lakeside Group, producer of the International Art and Antiques Expos and New Art Forms, wants new storm windows for his house in Lakeside, Mich.
”We have windows on the sun porch that are open to the lake. It`s an old Spanish house with those windows with tiny panes built in 1927, and I hate to lose them, but they let in all the wind.”
Old houses also have appeal for Steve Starr, owner of Steve Starr Studios, which specializes in Art Deco memorabilia.
”I`d like to get my house repainted because my home is 100 years old next year. I`d paint it the same colors (pale yellow with white trim and medium gray bay) because I like them. I`d finish it up for its birthday and also for me.”
Jim Onan, entrepreneur and owner/resident of the Gold Pyramid House and re-creation of King Tut`s Tomb, in Wadsworth, would like ”four or five new mummies from Egypt; people are really into mummies for some reason.” (He already has one genuine Egyptian mummy.)
Martha Stewart, author and entertaining maven, wants to keep from looking like a mummy. The new addition she plans to make to her Connecticut abode in 1992? ”A steam shower.”
In Chicago after spending several months in New York, Brigid Murphy, writer/producer and star of the funky ”Milly`s Orchid Show,” has had her fill of showering. ”All I could do was shower in New York,” she recalls, a hard adjustment for a devoted bather. In 1992 she wants ”a big, round bathtub” for home.
Why a round tub and not a traditional rectangular one?
”Because it is bigger and holds more,” says Murphy quickly. ”It`s where I can soak, think and drink a little champagne.”
Margaret Hillis, founder and director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus since 1957, wants to add a new dining room set to her North Shore residence next year ”because my current table isn`t big enough to seat more than 10 people.”
Richard Melman, who has a magic touch in the world of restaurants with his ever-growing Lettuce Entertain You Corp. (Scoozi!, Ed Debevic`s, Shaw`s Crab House, Tucci Milan, to name a few), just wants his wife, Martha, to get through with the house.
”I thought she was finished, but she`s not. I wake up and there`re jackhammers going. She`s building a summer house, in the back yard, attached to the house. She says we can go there in the summer. It`s a cute idea, but it`s driving me crazy.”
Gordon Segal, who created Crate and Barrel and made it virtually synonymous with the idea of comfy, affordable accessories and furnishings, says the only thing he wants in his own home is something he can`t buy: a little more time. He has a warm, comfortable home, he says, but he`s rarely there.