This residence occupies one of Hyde Park’s most distinguished addresses — a neo-Gothic high-rise designed by Robert S. DeGolyer in 1927 and, for nearly four decades, the tallest building on Chicago’s South Side. A contributing property within the Hyde Park–Kenwood Historic District, the building carries a full century of architecture. Our clients, retiring from international careers abroad and drawn back to Chicago, asked us to build a home worthy of the European architecture that had shaped their lives — 2,500 square feet, sweeping views of Lake Michigan, and a sense of history woven into every room.

The work began as a full gut renovation: interior masonry, plaster and lath, and concrete-cast subfloors taken back to the structure, utilities upgraded, and a high-velocity air conditioning system threaded invisibly into a building never designed for one. What we kept, we restored. Custom plaster legacy mouldings were preserved and restored throughout; the solid-wood arched entry door between the living and dining rooms was returned to its original purpose; and original wooden cornices and columns were revived as focal points. A custom recessed oval ceiling now conceals the new HVAC behind the formal entry’s restored mouldings.

The greater challenge was coordination across an ocean. Our clients were still living in Europe, so we ran the project remotely — filming weekly video blogs to walk them through every decision — while sequencing finishes that shipped from around the world on lead times reaching twenty weeks. That sequence forced us to plan in reverse: rather than fit finishes to the residence, we built the residence to the finishes. When the Italian kitchen cabinetry was designed flush to the ceiling, we leveled the century-old concrete floors without raising them and ground them down by a precise quarter-inch — months before the cabinets arrived from Italy — so the installation would meet them exactly. The result is a home of elegant bravado: classic architecture, contemporary design.