Rising into the air: The answer is “yes” to all those callers who have been wondering if that tall structure rising on Waukegan Road in Lake Forest across from Sunset Foods is the restaurant astronaut James Lovell is building.
It’s a two-story restaurant, with cooling and heating equipment in the upper reaches, banquet rooms on the second floor, public dining rooms on the main floor and a wine bar and cigar lounge on the lower level–none of which will resemble a spacecraft.
Lovell and chef-son James “Jay” Lovell III are building a French Provincial-style, nice-casual dining spot called Lovell’s Lake Forest Inn. The restaurant’s center will showcase artist Lumin Winter’s original 20-by-8-foot mural of horses across the Earth, used by NASA as the model for the Apollo 13 patch.
“I had been looking for it. It was on the auction block in California,” the senior Lovell said, excited about his find. The lower level will feature many space souvenirs. He hopes for a late winter launch.