Luxury Renovations & Custom Homes in Winnetka
Design-led renovation, custom homes and interiors for Winnetka's lakefront estates and historic streets, carried with the restraint its architecture asks for.
Few villages on the North Shore carry the architectural significance of Winnetka. From the lakefront estates of East Winnetka to the wooded quiet of Hubbard Woods, this is a place of architect-designed and genuinely historic houses, homes with provenance, proportion and a presence that has settled over generations. Here a renovation is less an upgrade than a conversation with what already stands. Martire Custom Homes approaches Winnetka in exactly that spirit: principal-led, attentive to a home's architecture and its setting, and shaped above all by the family who will live within it.
Architecture worth honouring
Winnetka's housing stock rewards a particular kind of care. East Winnetka's lakefront properties, the established calm of Hubbard Woods, and the village's long tradition of period and architect-designed homes all ask for restraint rather than reinvention, additions that read as though they were always there, interiors that feel collected over time rather than installed in a season, and detailing that respects the hand of the original house.
Martire works best in the pre-architect, pre-construction phase, before plans are fixed. Engaged early, we read the home, the land and your lifestyle together, then carry a single artistic direction from architecture and joinery through to finishes and styling, so the finished home feels inevitable, never imposed.
Renovations, custom homes and interiors
Our work in Winnetka spans whole-home transformations of established residences, sensitive updates to historic and architect-designed houses, considered additions, and the occasional custom home where the right site invites it. Each is led by Courtenay Martire and a long-standing circle of artisans, with one eye drawn from fashion, photography and design and another fixed on how the architecture wants to be treated.
We can select or work alongside your architect, guide or create the plans, and direct everything that follows, custom millwork and cabinetry, lighting plans, drapery and textiles, materials, art and finishes, so the interiors and the architecture become inseparable, and the home reads as a portrait of the people in it.
A home that holds its setting
On a Winnetka lot, whether a lakefront site in the east of the village or a mature, tree-shaded street in Hubbard Woods, the relationship between house and land matters as much as any room within it. We consider how light moves through the day, how the home meets its garden and its approach, and how each space carries from one to the next, so the architecture sits naturally in its place and the experience of living there feels balanced and unforced.
The result is a home synchronised to both its setting and its owners: thoughtfully built, quietly confident, and unmistakably yours.
A studio suited to homes of this calibre.
- Principal-led direction from Courtenay Martire, with a fashion, photography and design eye applied to the home, and the architectural restraint Winnetka's housing stock requires
- Best engaged before the architect, reading the home, the land and your lifestyle so additions and interiors feel original to a historic or architect-designed house
- A studio built for $300K–$1M+ luxury renovations, custom homes and whole-home transformations rather than piecemeal updates
- Long-standing artisan partnerships in millwork, cabinetry, drapery and finishes that meet the standard of the North Shore's most significant homes
- A trust-based, largely repeat-client practice that carries one cohesive vision from pre-construction through final styling
Good to know.
Do you work on historic and architect-designed homes in Winnetka?
Yes, much of Winnetka's appeal lies in exactly these houses, and they are among our favourite to work on. We approach historic and architect-designed homes with restraint, modernising for the way you live while honouring the architecture, proportion and detail that give the home its character.
When is the best time to bring Martire into a Winnetka project?
As early as possible, ideally before an architect is engaged. Coming in at the pre-construction phase lets us shape the plans, sequence decisions well, and carry one cohesive vision from architecture through interiors, which almost always saves cost, time and regret on a home of this calibre.
What kind of projects are the right fit?
Our work centres on luxury renovations, additions, whole-home transformations, custom homes and design-led interiors, typically from around $300K upward. For Winnetka's lakefront 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 in Winnetka, we would be glad to hear about your home and what you hope it might become.