A water soluble silica precursor, tetrahydroxyethyl orthosilicate (THEOS), was used for the synthesis of mesoporous silica from micellar solutions of a nonionic surfactant bearing cholesterol moiety (ChEO(10)), which also forms a variety of lyotropic liquid crystal (LLC) structures. The resulting mesoporous silica showed ribbon-like structures, both in pm and nm scale, corresponding to the rectangular LLC phase of ChEO(10). We propose the use of THEOS as a novel silica precursor for the investigation of tailored imprinting of LLC topology into the mesoporous silica.