Glen Ellyn House

Glen Ellyn, Illinois

Our client, the head of an international horticultural business, asked us to transform the house in which she grew up into a serene retreat, open to the landscape, with a feeling of spaciousness without monumentality. The original house failed to exploit its location at the end of a heavily wooded, steeply sloped ridge overlooking a lake. Our design follows the arc of the natural contours in an elongated sequence of living spaces that extends out into the trees in a boomerang-shaped elevated boardwalk to fully capture the lake view. A new entry foyer is located in a low, glazed link between the extensively renovated house and a new living room addition. Hidden behind its rough fieldstone wall from the parking area below, the addition's smooth wood ceiling slants up to form a hilltop pavilion, open to the landscape on three and a half sides through sheer glass planes whose orientations and framing carefully orchestrate the experience of the landscape outdoors.

Project Data

Area/Budget: 5,000sf / $1,900,000

Scope: sustainably designed renovation & 2,000sf expansion of 3,000sf single-family house on Lake Ellyn

Project Team: David Woodhouse, Brian Foote (project architect), Dave Sherman, Stephen Fenelon, Greg Lauterbach, Michael McClimon, Brian Meade, Marsha Woodhouse

CE Anderson & Associates (structural); Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architecture (landscape); Prestige Heating & Cooling (mep); Spengler Design & Construction (general contractor)

Photographer: Woodhouse Tinucci Architects