Building team creates masterful design on 4.5 acres in Wheaton

Oak Park native Laura Christensen and her partner, Mark, built their desire property throughout the pandemic on a spectacular parcel of wooded land adjacent to the Cantigny Golf Course in Wheaton. The Arts and Crafts-design and style masterpiece they developed hearkens back to Laura’s youthful experiences in Oak Park, the location the place Frank Lloyd Wright and other remarkable architects experimented.

“We experienced lived in Wheaton for 30 many years and preferred to create the household we had been developing in our minds for yrs — and do it on a massive parcel of residence due to the fact I am a landscape architect and wished space to plant and appreciate,” Laura suggests.

The couple and their developing crew hit that mark and other people.

“Also, considering that I grew up to recognize wonderful architecture as artwork, I have an understanding of that we are certainly dwelling in a piece of artwork,” she suggests.

Right before the home was designed, Laura stumbled upon a “for sale by proprietor” indicator on home bounded on two sides by the Cantigny Golf Class. Prior to long, the few was capable to obtained it and one more great deal future door, assembling 4.5 acres of top quality property.

“We finished up with a Wisconsin escape dwelling without having to depart town!” she recalls.

“I loved the clean up strains, wonderful woodwork, major windows and other particulars inherent in a Craftsman residence. I actually look at this form of household to be the quintessential ‘homey, cozy home’ and needed to establish a person,” Laura states.

When they experienced the land, they moved ahead to assemble a collaborative staff of specialists to make it a reality and, the good news is, had ordered most of the elements they needed prior to COVID hit, building setting up materials far more scarce. Mike Sparks of Sparks Architects Inc. of Elmhurst intended the home, Brad Drendel of Brad Drendel Builders Inc. of Naperville was the builder and Joan Kaufman of Inside Setting up and Style Inc. in Naperville did the interior structure.

“The staff designed the Christensen household from the ground up, starting up in September 2020 and it took about a yr to comprehensive,” Kaufman claims.

The unbelievable 4,200-square-foot home attributes a 1st-floor master suite a spectacular, cathedral-ceilinged household home with a stone hearth flanked by window seats and topped by statement-earning ceiling rafters a charming state-of-the-artwork kitchen that includes alder cupboards and stunning Versailles-patterned tile perform a gentle-loaded a few-time home from which to appreciate Laura’s gardens and substantially additional, together with a basement wine area.

Exceptional touches abound in the home, these as a kitchen countertop with a dwell edge leading manufactured from a huge, 120-calendar year-outdated oak the homeowners ended up pressured to cut down from the residence a custom made wood dining booth in the kitchen area, produced by Town-Dwelling Design in Chicago tailor made artwork glass cupboard doors in the kitchen area, made by Kaufman and fabricated by Alpine Stained Glass in Plainfield a&#13
hanging blue agate backsplash in excess of the range and blue Alaska granite countertops Arts and Crafts-design mullioned home windows all through and a porcelain kitchen area flooring with tumbled edges, made to seem like serious stone.

“Lots of tiny mom-and-pop organizations in the Chicago spot had been element of the method and we favored that,” Kaufman says.

The whole development method was all about depth and character because Laura, as a landscape designer, is closely interested in wellbeing and wellness, Kaufman provides. Only nontoxic and no-VOC elements were picked and all of the cupboards have been still left in a climate-controlled warehouse to “off-fuel” for a month before getting installed in the dwelling. Tile was installed on the floor of the kitchen to superior maintain up to the Christensens dogs. William Morris mother nature designs appear on drapes, pillows and even on the stairway runner.

Even the bathrooms are putting with the learn bath that includes a cost-free-standing soaker tub and a roomy stall shower with a huge sheet of vibrant quartzite as its back again wall.

“The Christensens permit our workforce design every thing, from the significant image down to trivialities like the knobs on each cupboard doorway,” suggests Kaufman. “We pooled our sources and expertise to make this household exclusive and the Christensens unquestionably like it.”

Laura Christensen concurred. “We are sensation like the house turned out even superior than we envisioned. A group of us contributed our exclusive expertises and established a wonderful house,” she suggests. “It is so peaceful in this article and we feel like we are dwelling outdoors, even when we are inside our house.”