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AGE: 42 |
Five years ago, Hughes N’Cho-Allepot landed here as part of the design team working on the original Chicago Spire, a skyscraper project that changed ownership and was eventually shelved. “I hope they’ll give it a shot when they can,” he says. “Chicago deserves to have it.” In any case, N’Cho-Allepot and his wife, Meghan, and their children have found their home in Oak Park. “It’s not quite a city, not quite a village. It’s fresh and friendly, and I have a wonderful house there,” he says. N’Cho-Allepot designed the coolly sophisticated Gold Coast lounge The Drawing Room, which has become his Chicago calling card. Now, in addition to interiors and furniture design projects for clients, N’Cho-Allepot is working on his own nightlife concept. “Paris is an old town with a lot of history, and I can’t quite get away from that,” he says. “The bar will be my idea of Versailles meets 21st-century elegance.”
Photograph: Maria Ponce