The happiest of Thanksgiving to one and all.
While 2009 was an emotionally and financially challenging year worldwide, it represents a time when your deep friendship, appreciation, and personal support brought JRWD tremendous rewards.
Our new work at Trump Tower Chicago is a special joy – including one of the penthouse residences we have fashioned there for a family 7,000 miles away who appreciated our vision in creating an extraordinary collection of 21st century furnishings for them:
Just as meaningful are our many past clients who invited us back into their homes and their lives in 2009:
The owner of a vintage Lincoln Park residence we designed 20 years ago called us back to enclose his third floor atrium under glass for year-round use.
The 5,000 sq. ft. sports addition a Highland Park family commissioned replete with an indoor basketball court, batting cage and automated driving range, which situates players on many famous golf courses. Our firm had done three city condominiums for the family as well as their current home in the suburbs. Then, several years ago, they called on us to renovate and update their exterior facade and entry to accommodate the park-like setting their property now enjoys.
The developers of Emerald have invited us to return to the chic 12-story twin tower, considered the residential gem of the trendy West Loop, for a new assignment. Having won three awards for Emerald’s 8,000 sq. ft., $4 million totally green lobby, we are delighted to embark on the design and installation of a dramatic water source, a fountain, to complete the elegant concept exhibited in the stylish building where about 70% of 212 condominiums are sold and occupied.
On a personal note, I am appreciative as well of the Chicago Academy for the Arts not only for the prestigious Irv and Essee Kupcinet Leadership award they so graciously gave me in recognition of my arts advocacy but also for the fantastic education they provide for high school students aspiring to a more in depth arts education. And to the Illinois chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers for the two first place awards – one for a more than 3,000 sq. ft. penthouse at The Fordham, the other for a bath in a single family Bucktown residence.
As this frenetic year winds down, my design team and I look forward to 2010, which will hopefully emerge as a less stressful era enabling us to return to our comfort zones. My wish for you, my firends, is good health, prosperity and happiness in the coming year.
Meanwhile, please know that I am sincerely thankful for our relationship and the faith all of you continue to show in my work, my staff and me.