A Look Inside the Home of Lake Geneva’s Premier Interior Designer
Therese Fischer-Cirko is not one to back down from a challenge. The interior designer and project manager, who has worked her magic both in Chicago and the Lake Geneva area, recently took on a home remodel challenge all her own. And it was a big one.
One would think the house looked like the old 70s TV show, The Brady Bunch, since Therese describes the home she and her husband, Craig, bought in the Sturwood neighborhood of Lake Geneva as somewhat vintage. “We purchased the home five years ago and it looked like it was in a time warp.” It seemed as though no work had ever been done to this 1974 home. “It was just what I was looking for,” she says. “I didn’t want to buy anything I felt guilty about ripping up. I wanted an absolute fixer upper.” And she found exactly that in this ranch with a lookout basement.
“When I bought it, I knew from the inspection that the attic trusses were rotten. So, I raised the roof and ceilings on the first floor. I changed the exterior to a combo of stone and board and batten into a modern farmhouse.” They added bedrooms to make it a five-bedroom house, with an office and four full baths. A screened in porch rounded out the project in this 3,500 square foot home, which took longer than expected due to using subcontractors from both Illinois and Wisconsin.
She ripped out all the walls, creating an open concept entertaining space, and added her own special interior design touch. Her proximity to the beach and downtown Lake Geneva is complemented by the beachy blue and green colors on her walls. How lucky that despite the way it started out, this became her permanent home.
“It was originally going to be an Airbnb,” Therese says. But the Illinois couple and their four grown children decided that they wanted to continually summer on the lake and it didn’t make sense to continue renting out the home. “We originally structured the home to rent out the whole house or just the first floor.” The project took over two years to complete and Therese says she lived in hotels and met some friends who kindly put her up in their summer homes during construction. When COVID hit in 2020, Therese pivoted her plans and decided to live in Lake Geneva full time.
Therese, alongside her company, Mona Lisa Remodel and Design, LLC., is not your ordinary interior design firm. “I do a lot of project management,” she says. “I not only pick out finishes, but I bring in and manage contractors.” She coordinates with subcontractors, organizes when electricians and plumbers come and go, and also does exterior design work.
“I was always in construction,” she says. “I had a marble and granite shop that I sold a while back. Then I opened up a high-end tile and stone retail showroom in Chicago. I sold that. But I always hired designers and did a lot more than just sell people tile.” Since many homeowners are not year-round residents of the area, Therese does it all. She will meet with subcontractors to let them in and out of homes.
Once Therese and the clients settle on a budget, she knows how to take the project and run. “I send clients a lot of pictures to narrow down their choices and go from there.”
A project she’s currently working on is a large addition to a home. She designed the floor plan based on the homeowner’s needs and took measurements for the outside, then went to work designing something that would flow seamlessly inside and out. She then took the drawings and sent them to her assistant, who uses CAD (a 2D/3D computer-assisted design software) to preview the project before it is complete. The client has the chance to review and determine what changes need to be made, like color swaps or layout modifications. Once the plan is finalized, Therese will take the project to an architect or, for simpler projects, will do the work herself.
Therese jokes that she lives vicariously through her clients, as she selects the products that she enjoys herself for someone else’s home. From a total redesign of a penthouse in Chicago to Victorian homes to her very own modern farmhouse, Therese’s versatility is unlike any other. It’s no wonder that, in her free time, she likes to kick back on the lake with her blended family and two Golden Retrievers for some much-needed rest.
“There’s a reason we’re up here on the lake,” says Therese. “Our family has a boat on the Fontana side of Lake Geneva, and we like to boat in summer.” They’re on the lake as much as possible during summer and say entertaining is a big part of it all. Now that they have a place to call home, they invite both old and new friends to stay and enjoy wakeboarding, tubing, and a little fishing, too.
Mona Lisa Remodel and Design’s tagline is, “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary.” Between the life and business Therese has built for herself, her family, and her clients, the tagline says it all.
Mona Lisa Remodel & Design | therese.monalisa@gmail.com | 952.292.0648
Written by Chrysa Smith | Photography by Aliza Baran
