CHICAGO - Chicagoans love to "see" and "be seen" at the opening of any venture, whether it's food, furnishings, retail or art - or a re-imagined fusion of those concepts exemplified in the new RH Chicago. The new flagship RH Design Gallery, integrating retail with hospitality and home, officially opened on Wednesday, Oct. 7 in an elegantly restored landmark building in Chicago's affluent Gold Coast neighborhood. 

Even before the official opening, curious neighbors, potential clients and others kept up a steady flow of traffic into the gallery at 1300 N. Dearborn Parkway, in the bastion of Old Money mingled with lots of nouveau riche.

Not only "the ladies who lunch," but numerous men showed up for a first look at the debut showcase for RH Modern, Baby & Child and TEEN furnishings and contemporary art, as well as the retailer's core lines.

RUGS SET THE STAGE THROUGHOUT

Rugs designed by Ben Soleimani play an integral role throughout the new format - whether setting the stage for casual dining beneath the stunning steel-and-glass atrium ceiling in the main floor Courtyard, starring in a large 2^nd floor area rug department, providing a broad selection in sample displays or highlighting vignettes and rooms settings on every level.

Soleimani's newest designs for RH Modern, which boasts an entire dedicated floor in RH Chicago, hadn't made it into the Windy City store yet.  But many of his contemporary styles for RH are presently featured in store vignettes, and on the new RH Modern website. 

Some of the more serious rug shoppers included one woman who asked to take a sample home (samples are charged out at $50, which is credited back upon the sample's return regardless of purchase), and a casually dressed restaurant owner who wanted to discuss his rug needs.  

The sizeable rug department is elegantly appointed with tufted leather sofas, a large working table, and an entire back wall of hanging rugs flanked by bookcase-type sample displays. Fiber choices  range from heavily textured hemp to 100% wool, 100% viscose, 35% viscose/35% cotton/30% wool, and viscose and wool in a wide array of rich-textured constructions - plushes, thick cut-and-loops, woven wools, hand-knotted wools. Colors play to nature, from deep topsoil browns to lighter sand dune hues to a just-washed sheep's wool white and an assortment of grays.  "Made in India" was the predominant country of origin.

MAIN FLOOR COURTYARD, CAFÉ, WINEBAR AND PANTRY

On the first floor, up a few stairs, the light, airy and beautifully reimaged building boasts a stunning, glass-and-steel roofed atrium housing a café, pastry shop and winebar.

OUTDOOR RUGS IN ROOFTOP ATELIER

On the 5^th floor rooftop overlooking the city, a design associate welcomes visitors to another Design Atelier, this one for outdoor living. A roof, painted white underneath for a country look, protects most of the large U-shaped layout, while the tips of the "U" feature fabric-sided tents open to the sky. Under cover, the atelier features vignettes of outdoor seating groups atop a variety of 9x12 outdoor area rugs. Fabric and frame samples adorn the walls.

Elevators and a narrow staircase open onto a long, airy central space on floors two, three and four, as if in the spacious hallway of a large home. Narrower corridors radiate off the hall and open into smaller furnished rooms (at one time these were bedrooms for girls studying art, music and drama). Visitors wander down corridors and in and out of the rooms, all furnished as if in an elegant mansion.

RH MODERN ON ENTIRE FLOOR, RUGS UNDERFOOT 

In the new Chicago showcase, the entire 4^th floor is devoted to the RH Modern brand, integrating modern furnishings, textiles, lamps and other accessories, as well as original contemporary art. Handsome, airy room settings and vignettes give shoppers a light, airy feel in living, dining room, bed and bath rooms opening off of the wide central gallery. Rugs set the mood in most room settings and vignettes. In late fall, an entire RH Modern showcase gallery will open in Los Angeles.

RUGS STAR IN NEW BABY & CHILD, TEEN CONCEPTS

The 3^rd floor offers the first physical, in-store showcase for RH Baby & Child and RH TEEN collections, at either end of the wide, open central gallery. That gallery houses a Design Atelier - with hanging rugs and rug samples, as well as textile samples and even paint - specifically curated for (affluent) babies, children and teenagers.  Smaller hallways lead off the main gallery for each of the two new categories, and smaller rooms open from those hallways affording a look at what the very lucky teen, male or female, can dream about. Rugs in subtle pastels and variegated hues, pale plushes and sophisticated but youthful textures and tones underlay all of the furnished rooms and vignettes.

Baby & Child rooms range in decor from a jungle theme featuring a dark, rounded wood crib and framed illustrations of a rhinoceros and elephant to an ultra feminine motif with frilly white bed linens and table set for a tea party, to masculine sports themes for boys.

It was the babies' rooms, however, that elicited involuntary oohs and aahs from shoppers when RugNews.com stopped by.

"It makes you want to have more babies," one visitor remarked to a total stranger. "And a lot more money," the stranger laughed.