DESIGNED FROM MEMORY

SHARED STYLE CRUSHES HELP A DESIGNER TURN HER CHILDHOOD FRIEND'S NEW HOME INTO A MASTERFUL MASH-UP OF '70S AND '80s DECOR HITS.

-  SALLY FINDER WEEPIE

Burnt orange, lava lamps and disco. The 1970s get a bad rap. But it's also an era that hustled in well-traveled boho, textural rattan and cane, sultry brass, global pattern and bold abstract art. These style stalwarts decorate today's most au courant homes-and the childhood memories of two friends who pulled from the past to shape a new home.

"We go way back," says interior designer Rebekah Zaveloff of her friend Lorie FitzGibbon. "We grew up together in Ohio. My mom owned a store that sold the latest fashions; Lorie's mom was an art dealer. We were both heavily influenced by the style of the late '70s and early '80s-boho hippy meets disco and glam."

So when Lorie and her husband, John, built a new home in the Chicago suburbs, Lorie knew where to find her style muse.

"First, I told her what I didn't want," Lorie says with a laugh. "I didn't want a kitschy lake house-even though the property is on a lake or a house that looked brand-new and didn't fit with the 50-year-old houses in this little neighborhood."

Zaveloff was already on the same page. "My firm has primarily done remodels-in fact, this was our first new home from the ground up," she says. "I love the character that comes with old houses, and I wanted to give that aesthetic to Lorie in a home with casual elegance." The key, the friends agreed, was bringing elements from past eras into the new interiors.