Richar Interiors:
       An Explosion of
             Elegance and Delight

                                   By Jennifer Martin

For a man whose interior design has appeared in dozens
of major publications, from Robb Report to Architectural Digest, Chicago’s own Richar is remarkably modest.
Friendly and candid, he speaks openly about his childhood
in Ottawa growing up in a French-speaking household.
To this day, nobody in his family knows English well
except for him. His name evolved from his ethnic
background: “My name is actually spelled ‘Richard,’
with a ‘d’,” he says. “But in French it’s pronounced Ree-SHAR. I thought it would be easier to drop the ‘d’ than keep explaining
it to everyone.”
As far as his last name – which, strangely enough, is Johnson – he figured it would only add to the confusion. “So it wasn’t out
of anything pretentious that I dropped it,” he said. “I tell people I’m known as Richar, just like Cher, Madonna and Bozo.”
But his reputation is considerably more sophisticated than that of any of these icons. Known for his versatility, Richar has a
style that always evokes great warmth and elegance. He has generated a nationwide following in the 25 years he’s been in
business for himself. Respected by other top-tier designers, Richar’s work has also been featured in House & Garden,
Metropolitan Home, Better Homes & Gardens, House Beautiful, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine
and Chicago Home & Garden just to name a few.
It’s a success story that’s rooted in natural talent. Even as a child, Richar had an eye for furnishings and was always
redesigning his bedroom and his parents’ home. In his young adulthood, he was tapped for positions with several respected
interior designer firms in the United States. After a few years, the owner of a major business on the West Coast asked Richar personally to design his office. “I told him I was working for another designer and didn’t have the time,” Richar said.
“How much money do you make?” the client asked.
“About $25,000,” Richar said.
“You’ll make $25,000 on my project alone,” the man replied.
So Richar took his first commissioned work, and it appeared on the cover of Designers West magazine. More clients quickly contacted him, and Richar suddenly had a business of his own.
As the owner of a small, boutique design firm, he takes on a limited number of projects each year, determined to take a
personalized, hands-on approach with each client. Recently, he designed the penthouse at La Contemporaine, an upscale
residence at the corner of Grand Avenue and Wells Street in Chicago. The interior evokes a Japanese pagoda with bamboo
walls, flagstone floors, rift-cut oak wood, woven wall coverings and waterfalls throughout the apartment. Richar added a lush
and tranquil Japanese garden to the 3,000-square-foot terrace outside. The
renovation won numerous awards from the design industry.
His projects aren’t limited to the city, however. One of Richar’s all-time favorite commissions was restoring a 25,000-square-foot lodge in Marquette, Michigan, that dated to 1910. The spectacular remodel was featured in Architectural Digest. Another of his challenging projects involved the design of a client’s private, eight-seater jet.
“I used taupe leather in the walls and seating, and complemented those with black carpeting, as well as black plexi at both ends of the jet,” he said. “It created sort of an infinite look; it made the interior look larger. Then I had the exterior of the plane painted in black and champagne. The result was very classy, very chic.”
Richar has also designed the Wealshire, a 300,000-square-foot facility in Lincolnshire that provides long-term care for people with dementia. To add a home-like touch, he added small mailboxes outside each room and also used a different color scheme for each section of the facility. “If people got lost, they could at least remember the greens of Coventry Pod or the peaches of the Barcelona Pod,” he said.
Richar welcomes creative challenges like these in which he can express his creativity. “It’s always great when someone approaches you to do work you’ve never tried,” he said. “It keeps you from falling into the same old patterns. The result is that you do something better than you’ve ever done before.”

Richar Interiors Inc.
1327 W. Washington Boulevard
Suite 106
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 455.0924
(312) 455.0993 (fax)
www.richarinteriors.com
richar@richarinteriors.com