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Sometimes a classic English cottage can have too much of a wood thing. The dark-paneled walls work in the masculine-leaning library at 100-year-old 4 E. Fifth St. In the dining room, however, they projected "austere castle" more than "inviting gathering space." Endeavoring to revitalize yet preserve the home's core character, Mimi Collins turned to interior designer Amelia Canham Eaton for a solution. Once found - an antiqued wallpaper with a green leafy motif - Eaton tried...
Every detail mattered to R. Harold Zook. The Hinsdale-based architect, whose early 20th-century interpretations of the traditional English cottage became iconic features of the local landscape, was as involved with the interior finishings as with the outward elevations. Mimi Collins is appreciative of that Zook quality as she rehabs his century-old gem at 4 E. Fifth St. "I love all his hand-forged hardware. The light fixtures and curtain rods, all the hand-hammered work," she...
Mimi Collins got a good look at the century-old 4 E. Fifth St. home before closing on it in May. Sometimes, however, it's the previously unseen that can deliver a payoff. "Look at this chimney over here, how great that is," Collins said pointing up to the distinctive brick stack. "It was all covered in ivy." During a tour of Collins' latest Hinsdale restoration project shortly after she took possession of it, Collins was already in the early stages of breathing new life into...
Having breathed new life into an historic R. Harold Zook-designed home several years earlier, Hinsdale's Mimi Collins was well-versed on the celebrated local architect. But Zook's 1920s-built cottage-like dwelling at 4 E. Fifth St. was not on her project wish list when it hit the market last year. After all, Collins had just gone to market with the 7,000-square-foot-plus Roaring Twenties château on Park Avenue that she'd spent two years rehabbing. "I had no intention of...
