North Center, at the scale of a neighbor.
Grace Gardens is a single four-story building on a quiet residential block of West Grace — six residences stacked two per floor, each a full-floor or duplex plan. The building reads first as its own object: a flat charcoal-brick façade with a deep bronze reveal running the full height, oversized windows recessed into the brick, and a single formal entry between two garden flats.
Inside, the homes share one material language — rift-sawn white oak floors in a pale wash, honed quartz, matte-white and warm-oak cabinetry, and antique brass against matte black. Every residence opens to a covered balcony at the front and a private terrace at the back; the top-floor homes step up onto a full rooftop deck.
Grace Gardens sold out, at ask, in under a month per residence. The building proved the thesis that carries into our larger projects: a disciplined material list, single-floor homes stacked on a quiet stair core, and a restrained façade that lets the block keep its rhythm.
The site — 1840 W Grace — sits mid-block on a two-flat-lined stretch in the heart of North Center: brick greystones, a Catholic grade school two doors down, a corner tavern that still closes for Bears games. The neighborhood has its own quiet gravity, and the brief was to add to it without competing with it.
What we built is deliberately flat-fronted and mostly charcoal brick — no cornice, no stone, no announcement. One deep bronze reveal splits the façade and catches the afternoon light. From across the street, the building reads at the same scale and rhythm as the three-flats beside it.
The compliment we wanted from the neighbors wasn't 'what a beautiful new building.' It was 'I forgot when that went in.'
Each residence is a single full-floor plan that runs front-to-back across the building. The day begins at a private elevator vestibule — coats, keys, a closed coat closet — and opens onto a wide great room that holds kitchen, dining and living inside one daylight axis.
The kitchen sits at the center of the plan, flanked by a butler's galley and a prep pantry so the working counter stays clean. Bedrooms are tucked behind a secondary hall with its own laundry; the primary suite sits at the quiet rear corner with its own terrace door.
The finish palette is deliberately narrow: matte white cabinetry paired with rift-sawn white oak, honed quartz counters and full-height slab backsplashes at every kitchen, antique brass hardware, and matte black plumbing in the baths. It's a palette chosen to age slowly — the oak darkens over years, the brass takes a soft patina, the white stays white.
Where the palette loosens, it's intentional. A charcoal grid-panelled wall behind each primary bed. A single deep-charcoal powder room with a round brass-ringed mirror. A 3-D sculpted-tile backsplash at the range wall, catching light against an otherwise flat room.
A walk through, room by room.
Each residence is drawn for a day's use. Below, a tour of the rooms — drag or use the arrows to see more angles of each space.
A short list of materials, used everywhere.
Three floor plates, six residences.
In the quiet middle of North Center.
1840 W Grace sits three blocks from the Brown Line at Addison and a few strides from Hamlin Park — close enough to Southport Corridor and Lincoln Square for a Saturday, far enough off the main streets to feel like a neighborhood block on a Tuesday.
The site is walkable to Bell Elementary (one of the city's most-requested options schools), to a handful of the pre-war taverns that define the neighborhood's character, and to Warner Park's fieldhouse and pool. It's the kind of block parents actively look for, and it's why this building sold out before delivery.