Say you want a Revolution

This lover of all things 18th Century wins the battle of Colonial period-perfection

October 03, 2004|By Lisa Skolnik, Special to the Tribune.

Parker Lienhart is just like any other 40-something guy with a lot going on. There's the demanding day job (he's an art director at a Chicago ad agency); a two-career marriage (wife Wendy is a marketing consultant); a hectic family life (they have three children); and a large, picture-pretty house in the 'burbs to keep up (complete with an acre to prune and mow). But Lienhart has some idiosyncratic qualities that make him anything but typical.

For starters, he likes to clean -- and proves it daily. "I have a much lower threshold for disorganization than my wife, so I'll come home every night, put away the toys and straighten up," he says. In fact, his bossy behavior got him a permanent assignment: "I tried to give her pointers on how to make our bed because she never got it right, and she finally said, 'Guess what? You just won the job,' " he confesses.

He's also astonishing with a needle and thread. The impeccably tailored, period-perfect canopy drawback curtains and skirt that grace his American Colonial mahogany bed (which is an exact reproduction of a 1760 original) were hand-stitched out of creamy linen by Lienhart himself, right down to the mustard wool twill tape that trims every single edge. "It would have cost a fortune to have these made, and they really had to be an exact fit on the frame, so I got directions on how to do it from Textile Reproductions, a company in West Chesterfield, Mass., that reproduces textiles for museum homes," he explains. His stitchwork is fastidious and faultless, the fit precise.

Then there's the passion he has for the Revolutionary era -- a far cry from most guys' predilections for sports or cars. It started when he was 8 or 9 and won a bona fide kerosene lamp at the Nebraska state fair, which piqued his interest in the period. By 10, he was sending away for catalogs of authentic artifacts. Fantasy play followed.

"I wanted to experience what it was like to live back then, so I'd wrap my feet in rags and go out in the snow," he recounts. By 11, he had enough money from mowing lawns to pop for his first antique -- a $475 flintlock musket circa 1760 that he still owns today. Back then, it graced his bedroom wall, and was soon joined by other rustic pieces like a log bench and badger pelt rug. Luckily for Wendy, he's over the weapons habit and has moved on to American Colonial and William and Mary furniture, art and decorative accessories.

And finally, Lienhart knows how to dress. But we're not talking about routine sartorial choices, like the khakis, seersucker shirt and stylishly diminutive wire-rim specs he wore the day we met. Ever since he became enamored of the 18th Century, he's been involved in a Revolutionary War re-enactment group (Northwest Territory Alliance).

At 13, he was a drummer boy in an American unit, but today he's a British private in the Kings 8th Regiment of Foot because the uniform is his favorite -- right down to its brick-red regimental coat and tri-corn cocked hat . "It was an aesthetic choice," he admits.

Given these qualities, it shouldn't come as a surprise to hear that Lienhart also does all the decorating in his Clarendon Hills home -- quite understandably an American Colonial that's "an exact reproduction of a Deerfield, Mass., River Valley home circa 1750," he tells us. The endeavor blends all his talents, and makes his wife proud. "People always ask me who we used as our decorator, and I always say I'm married to him," she quips.

Say you want an evolution

But clearly, playing decorator is just one more hat for Lienhart, who also can be called a history buff, collector, connoisseur, craftsman and artist. It just so happens that the avocation encompasses all of these talents and allows him to apply them all at once. And thanks to a perfectionistic streak, instead of merely picture-pretty, his home is actually picture-perfect. Or at least as close to perfect as possible, since homes have evolved since the mid-18th Century -- especially where kitchens and bathrooms are concerned -- and furnishings from the period are astronomically expensive.

These last little tidbits are particularly relevant to Lienhart since they have forced him to think and act creatively in his home, which he was determined to make as period-correct as possible when he and Wendy bought it in 1999. Until then, they lived in a 53rd-floor apartment in a contemporary Streeterville high-rise that they had filled with mostly 18th Century antiques and fine reproduction furniture. But after their second son was born, they decided to move to the suburbs to gain more space. Lienhart also saw it as his chance to get the home of his dreams.

Fortunately, Lienhart is a perfectionist of the most rational sort: He strives to get it right and gives it his all, but when he can't, he adapts.