Every project I take on starts with someone else’s life. This one started with mine.

The Butternut Inn is my own home in Northbrook. It is the only project I have designed entirely to my own vision, a Northbrook designer home with no client, no brief, and no one to answer to. That turned out to be harder than I expected. When you can do anything, you have to know what you actually believe.

What a Northbrook designer home looks like without a client

What I believe shows up in the details. Layered neutrals that shift with the light through the day. Warm materials that ask to be touched. Soft pink threaded through rooms where you would not expect it. Furniture with history sitting easily beside things that are brand new.

Nothing here was chosen to impress. Every piece had to earn its place by working, by lasting, and by belonging. I moved slowly, sometimes waiting years for the right thing rather than settling for the available one. That patience is the difference between a room that photographs well and a room you want to sit in.

Built for gathering, and for staying

The house was planned around how people actually live in it. Sightlines that pull you through the space. Seating that works for two people or twelve. Surfaces that take real use without apology. Circulation wide enough to move through comfortably at any age, which was never an aesthetic compromise and never looked like one.

That last part is not decoration. It is the thinking I bring to every project, tested first on my own floors.

A few details for now, chosen because they hold up on their own. The full feature is with a publication, and I will share the rest once it runs.

Photography: Sarah Crowley Photography