Luxury Renovations & Custom Homes in Lake Forest
Design-led renovation, custom homes and architectural interiors for the North Shore's most considered estates, carried with the restraint their heritage deserves.
Few communities on the North Shore carry an architectural inheritance as distinct as Lake Forest. Old-world estates settle into wooded ravines and lakefront bluffs, and the legacy of David Adler and Howard Van Doren Shaw's Market Square set a standard of proportion, restraint and craft that still governs the village. These are homes with provenance and gravity, gated, significant, often shaped across generations, where a renovation is less an upgrade than a conversation with what already stands. Martire Custom Homes meets Lake Forest in that spirit: principal-led, attentive to the architecture and its setting, and shaped above all by the family who will live within it.
Honouring an old-world architectural legacy
Lake Forest is a place where architecture was always meant to be lived with rather than merely admired. The Adler-era estates, Georgian, Tudor, French and Colonial Revival, were composed with a patience and symmetry that resists trend, and the best work within them is the work that quietly disappears into the original intent.
Martire approaches these homes by listening first, reading the bones of the architecture, the rhythm of the rooms and the way the house meets its land. Whether the project is a sensitive estate update or a whole-home transformation, the aim is continuity, modern comfort, refined interiors and considered craft carried into a home of this standing without ever announcing themselves.
Designing for ravines, bluffs and the lake
Much of what makes a Lake Forest property remarkable lives beyond its walls, a ravine that falls away past the terrace, a bluff that opens onto Lake Michigan, mature woodland that has stood far longer than the house. These settings govern orientation, light and the seasons of a home, and they reward a hand that treats landscape and architecture as a single conversation.
Courtenay Martire designs the home to its setting: where the windows fall, how a room receives morning or evening light, how the threshold between interior and grounds is drawn. Working alongside landscape and architectural partners, the firm carries one artistic direction from the land through the millwork, cabinetry, materials and finishes.
Significant homes deserve a single, trusted hand
Estates of this calibre are not best renovated piecemeal. They reward cohesion, one principal directing architecture, interiors, custom joinery, lighting, materials and styling, so the finished home reads as a whole rather than an assembly of decisions made in isolation.
Martire is best engaged early, in the pre-architect or pre-construction phase, where design direction can select or work alongside the architect, guide or create the plans, and shape every choice that follows. For Lake Forest homeowners, that means a calm, considered process and a home that holds together from the structure to the last drapery and finish, a portrait of the people in it.
A studio suited to homes of this calibre.
- Principal-led direction from Courtenay Martire, a single, trusted design hand fitting for significant, historic and gated estates where cohesion is everything
- A restraint and reverence for architectural heritage suited to Adler-era and Market Square traditions, modernising for the way you live without erasing what gives a home its character
- Fluency in custom millwork, cabinetry, drapery, materials and finishes, executed with long-standing artisan partners to estate standards
- Design attuned to ravine, bluff and lakefront settings, orientation, natural light and the relationship between house and land
- Best engaged pre-architect or pre-construction for $300K–$1M+ renovations, custom homes and whole-home transformations, carrying full artistic direction through to styling
Good to know.
Do you work on historic and estate properties in Lake Forest?
Yes, sensitive updates to established and historic estates are central to the firm's work, and these are among the homes we most enjoy. The approach is to honour the original architecture, its proportion, detail and character, while bringing modern comfort, refined interiors and considered craft into the home in a way that feels original to it rather than installed upon it.
When is the best time to bring Martire into a Lake Forest project?
As early as possible, ideally in the pre-architect or pre-construction phase. Engaging design direction before plans are fixed allows the firm to guide or create the architecture, sequence decisions thoughtfully and ensure the home holds together from structure through finishes. Martire can also select or work alongside your architect.
What scale of project is the right fit here?
The firm focuses on design-led luxury renovations, additions, custom homes and whole-home transformations, typically larger estate and lakefront projects, usually from around $300K upward, rather than single disconnected rooms. For Lake Forest's estates and historic homes in particular, that scope lets us do justice to both the architecture and the family it belongs to.
If you are considering a renovation, addition or custom home among Lake Forest's estates and ravines, we would be glad to begin the conversation.