Luxury Renovations & Custom Homes in Glen Ellyn
Principal-led design and construction for Glen Ellyn's most considered homes, from Tudor and Arts-and-Crafts restorations to ground-up residences on wooded lots, shaped around the people who live in them.
Few suburbs wear their history as gracefully as Glen Ellyn. Its streets curve through mature, wooded lots toward Lake Ellyn, and its housing stock reads like a quiet catalogue of American domestic architecture, steep-gabled Tudors, low-slung Prairie homes, dignified Colonials and the warm, handcrafted detail of the Arts-and-Crafts movement. Homes like these reward an owner who understands them, and a studio that will not flatten their character in the name of newness. Martire Custom Homes works in that careful register, reading the land, the existing home and the family's way of living before a plan is ever drawn. Whether the project is a sensitive whole-home renovation a few streets from the lake or a new residence settled thoughtfully into a wooded village lot, the work begins with the homeowner's story and carries through to the final finish, so the result feels rooted rather than imposed.
Honouring Glen Ellyn's Period Architecture
A Tudor's leaded glass and timbering, the deep eaves and horizontal calm of a Prairie home, the joinery and built-ins of an Arts-and-Crafts interior, these are not styles to be erased but languages to be spoken fluently. We approach Glen Ellyn's period homes with restraint and genuine respect, opening light and reworking circulation while keeping faith with the architecture's original intent. Custom millwork, considered cabinetry, refined lighting plans and well-chosen materials let a home of real age live easily in the present, with kitchens, baths and gathering spaces reimagined for how families actually live now. Engaged early, before plans are fixed, we can guide or create the architecture so that additions read as part of the original story rather than an afterthought set against it.
New Homes Settled into Wooded Village Lots
Building new in Glen Ellyn is an exercise in belonging. A residence here should answer to its setting, the canopy of mature trees, the rhythm of an established street, the way light moves across a wooded lot through the seasons. Best engaged in the pre-architect and pre-construction phase, we help select or work alongside the architect, shape the plans and hold full artistic direction from foundation through styling. The aim is a custom home calibrated to a specific family and a specific place, with joinery, cabinetry, drapery, textiles, art and materials conceived together rather than assembled at the end. The result is a home that feels as though it has always belonged among Glen Ellyn's trees, even on the day the family moves in.
Interiors That Carry the Whole Home
In Glen Ellyn, the most resolved homes are those where architecture and interiors were never treated as separate conversations. Courtenay Martire's background across fashion, photography, art and materials brings an editorial eye to whole-home interiors, balancing a home's energies, layering texture and tone against its period bones, and making the homeowner the quiet star of every room. From custom drapery and furnishings to bespoke millwork and a coherent palette of finishes, our interiors are designed to feel personal, collected and enduring, rooms that honour a Tudor's warmth or a Prairie home's calm while reading as wholly of their family, and that age gracefully rather than to a trend.
A studio suited to homes of this calibre.
- Principal-led from first conversation to final styling, Courtenay Martire carries the artistic direction personally, not through a rotating cast of project managers.
- A genuine fluency in Glen Ellyn's period vocabularies, Tudor, Prairie, Colonial and Arts-and-Crafts, so renovations and additions honour the architecture rather than work against it.
- Best engaged early, in the pre-architect and pre-construction phase, where we can select or guide the architect and shape additions and new builds before decisions harden.
- A design-build-minded studio that unites architecture, interiors, custom millwork and finishes into one coherent vision, ideal for both period restorations and homes built new on wooded lots.
- Long-standing artisan partnerships and a ~90% repeat-client practice, built on trust rather than transaction, the way the most discerning Glen Ellyn homeowners prefer to work.
Good to know.
Do you work on Glen Ellyn's older Tudor and Arts-and-Crafts homes?
Yes, and with real care. Glen Ellyn's period homes, Tudor, Prairie, Colonial and Arts-and-Crafts among them, are among the work we most enjoy. We restore and reimagine them for contemporary living while keeping faith with the proportion, materials and craft that make them worth preserving, shaping architecture and interiors as a single, considered whole.
When is the best time to bring Martire into a Glen Ellyn project?
As early as possible, ideally in the pre-architect or pre-construction phase. Engaging early lets us read the site and your lifestyle, select or work alongside the architect, and carry full artistic direction from the plans through to the final finishes and styling. It is when our involvement adds the most value, particularly with sensitive period homes and wooded lots.
What scale of project do you typically take on in Glen Ellyn?
Our focus is design-led work such as whole-home renovations, significant additions, custom homes and full interiors, the kind of transformation that benefits from principal-led direction throughout. We are happy to discuss your home and explore whether the fit is right.
Begin the Conversation about your Glen Ellyn home.