House In Three Acts

An 1888 historic limestone home in Bucktown unfolds in three acts, transforming its historic shell into a warm, sensuous modern interior for a young family.


Located in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood, this 1888 limestone home in a designated historic district has been reimagined with a warm, sensuous modern interior for a young family. Conceived in three acts, the transformation begins with an extensive renovation of the ground floor, where the public spaces, including the kitchen, dining, living, and family rooms, are reconfigured to support both everyday living and large-scale entertaining. These interventions recalibrate the proportions of the existing rooms while maintaining the enfilade quality inherent to the home’s original layout, preserving its historic rhythm even as the spaces are opened and modernized.

The Second Act introduces selective interventions on the second floor, largely respecting the existing spatial organization, with the exception of a library that is carefully opened up using glass and steel doors to extend light and connection. A new open-riser rear stair, set within a double-height volume, draws daylight inward through windows framing the park beyond, while a new roof deck over the existing garage provides a private, contemplative space beneath the canopy of existing trees.

The Third Act reshapes the attic into a serene primary suite, where a cacophony of angled ceilings is reconciled by a curving millwork wall and closet that form a sculptural alliance where they meet, defining a new spatial condition within the historic envelope. Throughout, a distilled material palette, inspired by the capiz shell—culturally and personally significant to the client— tempers the gravitas of the limestone shell, creating interiors that feel intimate yet expansive, through compositions of walnut floors and millwork, quartzite slabs, stainless steel, and sandblasted glass, unifying the home in a tactile, luminous calm.

A hidden millwork door reveals a new butler’s pantry while framing an entrance to the new kitchen beyond.

A carefully expanded kitchen maintains the home’s existing spatial qualities with framed views to adjacent rooms, while opening it up to daylight and movement for entertaining and everyday living.

The existing front bedroom is reimagined as a library with operable steel and glass walls and built-in millwork.

Selectively curved walnut-veneered millwork panels are added, wrapping the perimeter of the existing primary suite creating a sculptural alliance between wall and sloped ceiling. Storage is placed hidden within the interstitial space resulting in a new spatial order.