In Glen Ellyn, Illinois, located just off of Main Street along Pennsylvania Ave., The Parlour at Park & Oak invites patrons, travelers, and clients alike to step into its storied cocktail lounge and linger a while. Dedicated to the art and place of conversation, The Parlour—much like its namesake derived from the French word parler, meaning “to speak”—is a space designed to welcome guests, entertain clients, and host events. Featuring the original brick of its reimagined historic bar space, The Parlour is defined by character, warmth, and comfort, threading the use of fabrics, textures, and lighting into a carefully woven tapestry that has quickly become a part of the fabric of the downtown village.
Inspired by Park & Oak Interior Design Founders, Christina Samatas and Renee DiSanto, The Parlour is an ode to the art of gathering and is intended to serve as a community destination, where its design is more than visual and its cocktails are as curated as its overall experience. The adjacent, expanded showroom is also accessible through the cocktail lounge, allowing patrons and clients to figuratively step into their portfolio of work in which kitchen, dining, and living room vignettes come to life to be experienced firsthand. But for Samatas and DiSanto, who are residents of the community, at its heart, The Parlour is about inviting people into a space that feels like their home.
“We sat down and had lunch one day after the first couple of projects that we started working on to really define what this was and what we wanted to do. What is our philosophy? What are we trying to accomplish? We were taking notes on this random piece of paper, writing down all these ideas, and the biggest thing we talked about was character and warmth. We wanted to create inviting spaces that were also functional, and that showcased how design is a lot more than just visual. It’s the way you live,” said DiSanto, co-founder of Park & Oak.
“Our town is very much about community—we have kids that live here and go to the schools here—and we really wanted to do something in our community that invited everyone in,” DiSanto added.
Founded in 2015, Park & Oak is a residential interior design studio that specializes in creating functional and comfortable spaces that reflect their clients and their lifestyle needs. Informed by a belief that design can be used to create feelings of comfort and happiness, their work focuses on details, individuality, beauty, and a mix of styles, influences, and materials to create timeless spaces that have a penchant for the unexpected.
“When we talk about comfort, a lot of people we work with have families and pets, or they like to use their home to entertain. They want it to look lovely, interesting, and inviting, but they also want it to feel comfortable and functional. So, when we are approaching design, especially residential, we are approaching it from the standpoint of not only how are they going to use this today, but then how are they going to use this space in five-to-10 years as their family grows and the dynamics change?” said Samatas, co-founder of Park & Oak.
“How is it going to operate and function when they do entertain, so they are not worried about someone messing up the sofa fabric? Nothing is too precious, everything should have a little bit of a patina or be able to be cleaned up easily. That is the approach, we really try to consider how all of the different facets of the people living in the home come together and how they will utilize the space,” Samatas added.
Since its launch, the studio has worked on new construction, renovation, and furnishings projects across the U.S., bringing their collective affinity for timeless style to kitchen spaces, adding character to bathrooms and mudrooms, updating bedrooms and office spaces, and imbuing functional warmth to dining and cocktail lounges. Park & Oak has also expanded from its initial studio space into its current location at Pennsylvania Ave., which houses its ever-growing team and its series of spaces: Park & Oak Interior Design, Park & Oak Collected, and The Parlour at Park & Oak.
“Our first studio was about 400-to-500 square feet and we had one employee. Then, we moved into what we thought was this huge space. Within a couple of years, we realized that we were outgrowing that space as well. We had a team at that point of around12 employees and after we outgrew that space, we knew we wanted to start selling products as well. We needed to purchase all of our accessories and be readily available for our designers to install. Hence, we launched Collected, which is the retail arm of Park & Oak,” DiSanto said. “We launched it separate from our design studio in downtown Glen Ellyn, and then expanded into the two current spaces so we could all work out of the same studio. That is also where we recently opened The Parlour.”
DiSanto also noted that their philosophy for The Parlour focuses on the experience, particularly in terms of lifestyle. When they looked at transforming the “beautiful, antique bar” originally built in the early 1900s in Glen Ellyn, the concept took cues from both the home and hospitality sector. And as a cocktail lounge, it was also important that the experience extended to the sensory, down to the scent of candles and the ambient music that played in the background. Each glass was carefully selected and its menu of small bites like smoked salmon spread, a sweet- or savory-inspired charcuterie, and triple crème brie and peach bourbon jam served with baguette—all sourced from the local Marché specialty shop—reflected an affinity for clean, fresh flavors with a bit of the unexpected. Signature cocktails, like The French Fog, Turn Up The Heat, Bittersweet Symphony, Mark Twain, and Detox on the Rocks were also created as an extension of their design philosophy of timeless and classic with a dash of wonder.
“We approached this space similar to how we approach homes. We are constantly evaluating spaces to consider how to balance warm and cool tones, various textures like metals and woods, as well as how to evoke a feeling in a space that something has been there, but you are not sure if it is new or if it is old. When we were designing The Parlour and Collected, we wanted it to feel like you were experiencing one of the homes we designed and I think that essence is felt throughout,” Samatas said.
“It was apparent to both of us on opening night when we had a party that welcomed the community, family and friends who had supported us, that everyone felt right at home and it was just this overwhelming sense of everyone coming together to experience and enjoy the space. Whether sitting on the sofa or at the bar or hanging around the island, The Parlour experience happens organically here, which is really amazing,” Samatas added.
Brought together by a serendipitous turn of events and a shared love for design, the Park & Oak founders initially crossed paths when they both moved to Glen Ellyn with their young families. With respective backgrounds in public relations and marketing; and photography, baking, and content creation, Samatas and DiSanto’s decision to join creative forces to build their own brand and design studio was arguably just as organic.
“We were both busy with young kids and would pass each other, but we didn’t really know each other and individually, we were exploring our own paths. After my third child was born, my daughter, I decided to go back to design school and enrolled at Harrington [College of Design] in the city and started taking design classes. I really just fell in love with it. Prior to that, I had worked in PR and marketing and special events, and although I loved that field, my passion had always been something a little more creative and design felt like a natural fit,” Samatas said.
“Fast-forward, I’m working at a design firm for what I thought was my dream job, because I was actually getting to do what I really loved and enjoyed, but the commute was killing me. Then, I started working with a builder I had worked with on for my own home renovation who had asked if I would be interested in helping with their clients—basically, anyone that needed design help and that it could be on my own timeline,” Samatas added.
It would be a couple years spent working on projects, refining her familiarity and expertise with the build process, and an invitation from DiSanto to collaborate on a personal lifestyle blog later, that the two started to work together more frequently.
“Meanwhile, [DiSanto] was on her own path. She’s a natural creative, she’s done photography and painting and this time when I met her, she had a food blog and was also making these amazing cakes on the side that not only looked ridiculously beautiful—like a piece of art—but also tasted really good. Funnily enough, I had hired her to make my daughter’s first birthday cake, because she was so talented. She transitioned her blog from focusing on food into more of a lifestyle blog, and that is really where our paths started to cross on a more regular basis,” Samatas said.
“We started to meet up and think about how we could collaborate better together—and in the background, we had six kids running around—and that is how we started Park & Oak,” Samatas added.
Named after the streets they lived on, Samatas and DiSanto quickly evolved Park & Oak from concept and design tenets scribbled on paper into a brick-and-mortar studio, merging their multi-layered and complementary approach to projects into a cohesive vision. Samatas noted she often describes their energy as polar opposite, or yin and yang, in some instances, while a shared core affinity for aesthetic and design provides the underlying foundation for the creative duo.
“She has strengths that are different than mine and together it’s this perfect union,” Samatas said.
Today, nearly 10 years after opening its doors, it is not uncommon for the co-owners to find community members, family, friends, and clients walking into The Parlour at Park & Oak to sit and stay a while, whether it is for a cocktail and a game of cards at a table, to participate in a design class, celebrate major life milestones, or meet up on a Friday afternoon. For them, it is a space that serves as a full-service community destination, where organizations like the Glen Ellyn Infant Welfare Society can hosts events to raise funds and awareness for their causes; knitting groups can come gather to knit; and their design team can meet with clients and build teams, providing resources for those who happen to walk in with a curiosity and fondness for the unexpected.
“Design is not just visual; it’s a lot more than that. It is about improving the way that our clients experience life by creating spaces more beautiful, more functional, more comfortable, and just overall more enjoyable,” DiSanto said.
To Samatas, design is a feeling and like so many things in life, has been a journey of lessons and moments for which she is grateful.
“To create spaces that feel like a sanctuary, safe haven, or place of respite is really important, and I think it is amazing that design can evoke so many emotions,” Samatas said. “Park & Oak has been a journey for us and a lifeline at different times. It has been so many things to us and we recognize now that it has been so many things to other people—from those who work with us, to homeowners we design for, to patrons that have become like an extended family. We have the opportunity to create a space for them—whether in our shared spaces or in their personal homes—that feels inviting and feels like them. That is what it’s all about.”
Text: R.J. Weick
Photography: Courtesy of Park & Oak
First published in Great Lakes By Design: Volume 8, Issue 3
