Ravenswood, drawn as twins and lived as siblings.
The Hermitage Twins are two new single-family homes set side-by-side on North Hermitage Avenue — a block of prewar brick three-flats, greystones, and the occasional wood-frame worker's cottage. We bought two adjacent lots and drew a matched pair: the same gabled massing, the same board-and-batten clad upper floor, the same tall black-framed window wall. One in charcoal, one in soft white.
Inside, each home runs to about 3,600 square feet on four levels — finished lower level, main floor, bedroom floor, and a partial-height primary suite under the gable. The plan was drawn around a single long spine: front door, stair, kitchen, rear deck. The rest of the house hangs off that axis.
We delivered both homes in 2023 to private families who live there still. The photographs below are the original delivery set — every finish, every fixture, every floorboard is exactly what sits in the homes today.
The twins share a massing diagram: a steep gable roof, a board-and-batten upper volume that steps forward over a crisp clapboard base, and a single black-framed window wall that climbs the full front façade. Stand in front of them and they are unmistakably the same drawing.
The distinction is tonal. The north home (4323) is the charcoal one — deep green-grey siding, black trim, a matte-black front door. Its sibling is the softer of the pair — warm white siding, a pink front door, the same black window frames but a lighter overall temperature. Same house, different weather. Inside, both homes were lined in a custom-selected wide-plank white oak — on floors, on ceilings, on the stair — to give the interior the warm, quietly cabin-like feel the exteriors don't announce.
We drew one house and built it twice. The difference is a few cans of paint and a new front door.
Each home is organised around a single axis that runs front-to-back: you step in at a quartz entry, pass the stair, and travel the full length of the plan through the living room, dining room, kitchen and breakfast room to the rear deck — a pergola-covered outdoor room that looks out over the yard.
The stair itself is lit from above: two skylights over the top landing throw a column of daylight all the way down to the foyer on clear mornings. Everything private happens upstairs, behind the stair — three secondary bedrooms on the bedroom floor, and an entire vaulted primary suite under the gable above.
Every Chicago house gets a rear yard. Most of them get a slab of concrete with a grill on it. We drew a proper outdoor room instead — a raised deck off the kitchen, covered by a full-width cedar pergola, with a second stair down to a flat lawn and a boundary fence that actually hides the alley.
The pergola is structural. It sits on steel columns that carry back to the foundation, and it throws just enough shade to keep the deck usable in August. Both homes got the same detail; both owners use it the same way.
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.
One material list, built twice.
Four levels, one plan, built twice.
Ravenswood, a few stops from the Square.
The twins sit mid-block on North Hermitage Avenue, a quiet north-south street of prewar brick three-flats, wood-frame cottages and mature parkway trees. A three-minute walk to the Montrose Brown Line, a ten-minute walk to Lincoln Square, and a straight-shot north-south drive to the lake.
An intact block — no aggressive demolitions needed. Two new homes, scaled to the block they joined.