'Urn lady' preserves history, antiques in Sleepy Hollow lake home

Posted February 05, 2010 10:00 pm

By Deborah Donovan

Karen Hill's favorite antiques - garden urns and furniture wearing the original paint - add charm and grace to her historic Sleepy Hollow lake home.

"What I like is original finish - a warm, original finish," she said. "It tells a story. For me that's everything."

But before examining her treasures, we're going to tell you a few design secrets of this antique dealer, who will show her wares at the Northern Illinois Antiques Dealers Association's 50th annual show Feb. 20 and 21 near Rockford.

Linen the perfect shade of robin's egg blue that covers her family room sofa and chairs came from Hobby Lobby. True to her trade, Hill found her upholstered furniture at bargain prices in places like flea markets.

And hidden off the dining room behind double doors is a modern office - outfitted from IKEA and Pottery Barn. The Hills crafted this from an L-shaped area that had little use.

The dining room table - flanked by voluminous, comfortable wicker chairs from Eddie Bauer - features a concrete top made by her husband, Al. He also crafted from old architectural elements an open shelf unit that looks antique and classical and is a focal point of the living room.

"I needed something really big and couldn't find a piece big enough that I liked," said Karen Hill. New features coexist with old in this house, which was built as a private fishing and hunting cabin in 1940 and still has cottage charm despite renovations and an addition. Yes, the kitchen is modern, but check out the glass knobs on the gray painted cabinets.

"They are the biggest glass knobs I could find. They're all different," said Hill.

Hill's trick that you might envy most is her ability to make attractive displays from injured treasures others eschew. And they turn up to surprise you throughout the house.

The most dramatic example is the body parts exhibit on the glass coffee table in her living room. Hands from dolls and statues predominate with other goodies that attracted her attention: real speckled eggs, metal letters, and mother-of-pearl buttons, all guarded by a pair of birds. These fragments are mostly white, and over the 18 years the Hills have owned the house, shades of white and cream have taken over this room.

Other signature collections are a bowl of broken Frozen Charlottes or little china dolls. And what about the relatively small round stone balls once used in water filtration plants and called river balls.

"Somebody has to give them a home," said Hill.

The benefit of being an antique dealer when it's time to decorate a house is demonstrated by a metal contraption with lots of leaves that stretches above the sliding glass doors to the lake. The former curtain holder is about 12 feet long, the perfect size for the wide space, but Hill didn't know this when she bought it. And if it hadn't fit after the comical trip home sticking out a window of her van, she could have sold it again.

These doors open to one of the home's best views of a private lake that Hill said was created by J.H. McNabb, chairman of Bell and Howell Company, who owned what was called Sleepy Hollow Far and built the house as a fishing and hunting lodge. One of the people who came there, according to the Sleepy Hollow village Web site, was Charles Percy, a McNabb protégé who became president of the company, then U.S. Senator from Illinois.

Of course, Hill also has antiques that collectors would envy for their own sake.

In the family room are no less than three 1880s-era storage pieces with original blue or green paint. Hill said since she does not have children she's not concerned about lead in the finish, but customers have been known to test before buying.

And then there are the urns. They are all sizes and almost everywhere - indoors and out. Most are the traditional bowl on top of a stand. But one stunning specimen in the living room is in the style of a classic, curvy Grecian urn. And all show at least one layer of old paint, of course.

"They used to at one point call me the urn lady," said Hill. "Whenever I could, I would buy any urn I could find - within reason."

And with three bedrooms and 31/2 baths, the now-rambling ranch on 2 acres lives very comfortably, especially in the summer when the Hills enjoy the old welded steel swimming pool and the patios that surround the house.

Karen Hill's modern office can be shut off from the rest of her Sleepy Hollow home with its vintage decor. Rick West | Staff Photographer

If you go

What: 50th annual antique show

Who: Northern Illinois Antiques Dealers Association

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21.

Where: Forest Hills Lodge, north of Rockford, 1601 W. Lane Road, Loves Park. Take Route 173, 3 miles west from the Addams Tollway (I-90).

Admission: $5; free parking. Profits will be donated to historic preservation groups.

Information: <a href="mailto:NIADA@AOL.com">NIADA@AOL.com</a> or (815) 761-1444.

Etc.: Karen Hill also sells antiques at SG Too, 116 Cedar Ave., St. Charles.

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