Case Study
A Private Retreat Conceived for a Growing Family
Wilmette Master Suite & Whole-Home Renovation
Location: Wilmette, IL · Type: Addition & Whole-Home Renovation · Status: Design Study · Scope: Master suite addition, kitchen, living areas, basement, exterior
A young family in Wilmette had outgrown the version of their house they'd inherited. The home was large but dated — generous in square footage, short on intention. With three children and more planned, what they needed most was the one thing the house didn't have: a place of their own.
The ask was deceptively simple. A master suite that felt less like a bedroom and more like a destination — somewhere that could absorb a sleeping newborn and still feel like a sanctuary, even with older children moving through the rest of the house. A retreat within the home.
The project grew naturally from there. The addition would sit over the existing garage and spill into a one-story portion of the house, creating a new upper floor with room to breathe. Alongside the suite, the scope expanded to include a kitchen renovation, updated family and living rooms, a basement playroom, and a guest room — touching nearly every part of the house. The exterior would be reimagined with a modern farmhouse aesthetic to unify the additions with the existing structure.
The Design
The master suite was designed around a single organizing idea: honest material, honest structure, honest light.
Exposed rafters with steel rafter tie connections read not as decoration but as architecture made visible — structure you can understand by looking at it. Skylights pull daylight into the peak of the room, shifting the quality of light through the day. The ceiling becomes the view.
A double-sided fireplace divides the suite without closing it. The bed sits on one side, a sitting area on the other. A window bench catches the afternoon light between them. The room is one space and two moods simultaneously.
The fireplace surround is custom — blackened metal, tactile and scaled to anchor the room without overpowering it. The palette throughout is deliberately restrained: natural wood, warm white plaster, aged metal. Materials chosen to age well and feel better over time.
The walk-in closets were designed with the same rigor — custom fittings, shelving, and closet islands that treat storage as architecture rather than an afterthought. A small work-from-home office, accessible directly from the suite, completes the program — a quiet place to close a door and think, steps from where you sleep.
This project represents a particular kind of architectural opportunity — the kind where a client's trust and a generous program create the conditions for design to do what it does best. Every decision in this suite was made in service of a feeling: that you have arrived somewhere worth arriving at. The clients ultimately found a new home in Wilmette that offered an easier path than navigating a major construction project with young children. The design was never built. But the thinking behind it is real, and the questions it asks — about how a home can hold a family while still holding its adults — remain as relevant as any project in this portfolio. Unbuilt, but not unrealized.
Working on a similar project?Contact Albert directly at albertw@babaarchitects.com or 617-840-2064.
