Story by MELISSA MERLI
Photos by VANDA BIDWELL
©2004 The News-Gazette
CHAMPAIGN – Atron Regen had been shopping for a house in Champaign for seven years when his real estate agent took him to 809 W. Park Ave., once the carriage house on the Burnham estate.
 “I parked out front and immediately thought, ‘I do not want this house, and I do not want to go into it,’” he remembered. “I thought it was ugly. But I got out and went in, and I opened the front door and there was this staircase and I said, ‘Oh, I love this staircase.’ I basically said in 15 minutes, ‘I’ll take it.’”
After closing on the house, Regen stayed for a month or two in his townhouse while 17 workers did extensive work on his new home, putting on a new roof, rewiring part of the structure, stripping wall covers, redoing floors and painting both interior and exterior.
An interior designer by profession, Regen knew just what he wanted for his one-and-a-half-story home and its intimate rooms: An eclectic blend of contemporary and traditional furnishings and decorations.
“I would have loved to have done it all in black, white and gray, but I had to flow with the feeling of this house,” he said. “This gave me an opportunity to express myself in many different ways, but I can work in any palette.”
Each room has a completely different look and feel. The carriage house is like a designers’ showcase but is cohesive throughout, having been done by one designer. And Regen, who shares the home with his West Highland terriers, Fabian and Priscilla, reminds a visitor that his house is used.
He works in the remodeled garage and meets clients in attractive spots in his living room and his sun room, which he calls his “east room.” He loves to entertain and has served dinner to as many as 70 guests, seating them in the dining room, adjacent living room and the garden.
The dining room is especially attractive; two guests who had recently seen the film “Girl with a Pearl Earring” compared the room to a Vermeer painting.
A green lotus damask wallpaper by Schumacher covers the walls. A really nice touch is the small French chandelier, a circa-1910 gaslight that Regen picked up in Paris, over the walnut and pecan inlay dining table.
“I love the green room because when I do flowers for my table, they look like they’re surrounded by nature,” he said.
In the living room, which is done in shades of red and beige, a Fu dog made in Italy of white porcelain stands guard on an antique library table refinished in black and gold enamel. On each side are mirrored screens by McGuire of San Francisco.
Over the large mirror above the fireplace – a gas log burns there – floats a framed paper sculpture by Marge Alexander of Minneapolis. Another Alexander piece of stretched canvas accents Regen’s media room upstairs.
The windows in the living room are dressed with Kennedy-style valances and draperies of chintz from Brunswig & Fils, a French company. A warm burgundy paisley print on sanguine by English designer Nina Campbell covers the wall.
In the media room,  perhaps the most contemporary space in the house, four vintage black end tables that once belonged to Regen’s mother, the late Yolanda Tosetti, fit well with his black-gray-white color scheme, emphasized on one wall by highly textured rubber wall covering in black, by Winfield of San Francisco.
Adding to the dramatic effect in the room are mirrored vertical blinds and an Oriental/art-deco like modular entertainment center that Regen designed and had built of Pionite laminate and glass.
“The TV is sort of fixed,” Regen said, “but the room can still be changed around a lot. It’s a second guest room, and guests love this room.”
The first guest room, on the ground floor, was decorated according to the taste of Mrs. Tosetti, a frequent visitor before she died in 1992. On the canopy bed, a score of pillows sits on the pink antique quilt made by Mrs. Tosetti’s mother.
Red was Mrs. Tosetti’s favorite color, so Regen himself dry-brush stroked the painted effect of hot pink on white on the paneling in the room.
Around the corner, in the pantry, Regen covered the counter with antique tiles imported from Portugal. Everywhere you look there’s something interesting, including, for example, the angel sconces in the kitchen that once stood under the Stations of the Cross in a Catholic church.
Regen has a bachelor’s from the University of Illinois in interior design. After getting his degree, he moved to Chicago and worked in a design firm there. He returned to Champaign and started Atron Regen Interior in 1981.
He later taught for three years in the UI interior design program, which no longer exists.
He would like to eventually develop interior design courses for credit at a downstate institution. He continues to teach interior design, though, through a noncredit course, “Doing A Lot With What You Got,” in the Parkland College Live & Learn program.
Regen, a registered interior designer with the state and a professional member of the American Society of Interior Designers, hosts monthly “Doing a Lot With What You Got” seminars at his home. Each seminar is limited to four people.
 
Four times a year, Regen does “A Day at the Mart with Atron.” That is a group tour for eight to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, one of the largest interior-design centers in the world.
The next trips are scheduled for March 9, May 11, Sept. 7 and Nov. 9. For information, visit Regen’s Web site at www.atronregen.com.
You can reach Melissa Merli at (217) 351-5367 or via e-mail at mmerli@news-gazette.com.
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