June 2008
List price: $975,000
The Property: While searching for a home, Zbigniew and Beata Banas became accidental developers. They found a property they liked—a shuttered church in the Irving Park neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest Side—but the building, a simple peaked structure with a spire piercing its roof, proved far too large for just one...
New Belgium Brewing's past is inextricably linked with biking: Then-homebrewer Jeff Lebesch found his beer muse while cycling through the Belgian countryside nearly 20 years ago, and that trip is forever memorialized by the brewery's signature amber ale, Fat Tire, named in honor of Lebesch's trusty, big-treaded mountain bike. Today, the Fort Collins, Colorado, brewery's lean, green, eco-friendly mandate inspires such events as the 11-city Tour de Fat, a traveling-road-show slash bike-gospel-tent-revival slash suds-fest that rolls into Palmer Square this Saturday, the 21st (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; free; intersection of Palmer Street and Kedzie Avenue; proceeds benefit West Town Bikes). The event centers on one person...
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The Elmhurst-based carpet company FLOR has just released a line of eco-friendly modular tiles inspired by the textile designs of iconic Herman Miller mid-cent-mod tastemaker Alexander Girard, and they are a sunny delight. The folksy, colorful patterns were based on the interior design of La Fonda del Sol restaurant, a 1960s New York eatery that was completely envisioned by Girard, from the dishes to the furniture to the napkins. There’s so much to like about FLOR tiles—you can mix and expand (these would be great wall-to-wall in a small space, mixed with solid squares), they fasten to each other so no gunky adhesives are needed, individual tiles can be removed for cleaning or replacement, and they keep things fresh by launching different patterns all the time. Martha Stewart even has a line, and Martha don’t make no junk. The La Fonda del Sol comes in four six-tile designs measuring three-by-five feet, and are available at A Cooler Planet, I.D. Chicago, and Healthy Green Goods for $159.99.
—BRADLEY LINCOLN
PR contact at FLOR: Gina Forst, gforst@flor.com, 630-516-4230 Read more