A couple settled into their Gold Coast home in Chicago with serious history: built in 1888, full of the ornate moldings and grand proportions of the era. The architecture was beautiful and very traditional, and it wasn't theirs yet. She has the bolder, edgier eye, and she came ready to take some risks, with an art collection from their last home in tow. The work ran from a full primary-bath gut to new wallcoverings, lacquer, and furnishings throughout. But neither the house nor her instincts had to give way to the other.

The strategy was a little brave: give every room a color pop or one bold move, then let the 1888 architecture hold the line. The dining room takes the biggest swing, with a lacquered ceiling, a mural wallcovering, and velvet chairs that read modern against all that tradition. Above the white marble mantel in the living room hangs Morel Doucet's Death of Venus, a cluster of porcelain limbs and coral forms that reworks Botticelli, one piece of a serious collection. Across the living and sitting rooms, curved modern furniture warms the formal millwork and grasscloth walls. In the primary bedroom, a deep green takes over the walls — the existing wallpaper painted rather than stripped, which kept its texture while giving the room new life. Black built-ins with brass hardware give it an edge. The primary bath is the quiet showpiece, taken to the studs and rebuilt as a marble wet zone, the freestanding tub and shower sharing one glassed-in space beneath a leaded diamond-pane window.

Interior design by Elizabeth Krueger Design. Photography by Angela Hau.