Preservationists Don’t Put Too Fine a Point On It in Their Maximalist Postmodern Reno

Jonathan Solomon, an architect and preservationist, and Meg Gustafson, a city planner and 1980s-vibe channeler, are fluid aesthetic experts. But when it came time to design a house together after getting married, they weren’t interested in a ground-up project. They wanted "something that already had authenticity," says Meg, but also "something that we wouldn’t feel too bad about messing with," says Jonathan. He was coming from a sprawling, prewar, four-bedroom condo in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood; Meg was leaving an 1885 worker’s cottage in Bridgeport on the city’s South Side.