Highland Park, Illinois

Highland Park, IL Custom Home Builders – Remodeling, Design & Build

Named for its beautiful park-like setting and its relatively elevated position relative to the lake, Highland Park was officially established as a city in 1869 with a population of 500. Since then, the city has grown in size and in population, with the most recent census estimating more than 29,700 people currently calling Highland Park home.

Highland Park’s popularity among families and retired homeowners is not surprising when you consider its close proximity to Chicago—it’s a mere 25 miles north of downtown—as well as its plethora of activities focused on culture and the arts. For example, Ravinia Park, the town’s 36-acre park with a variety of indoor and outdoor performance spaces, is the summer home for the oldest outdoor music festival in the nation, the Ravinia Festival. From June through September, Highland Park residents and visitors can be found packing up delicious picnic dinners, complete with a favorite bottle of wine, to enjoy and share with friends while listening to the musical greats from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to The Beach Boys.

Are you thinking about building your family’s dream home in Highland Park? Or do you currently reside in Highland Park and wish that your current home better suited your lifestyle and the way you like to entertain? The architects and designers at the Orren Pickell Building Group can help. Here in Highland Park and across the North Shore, we’ve assisted homeowners just like you in designing and building the luxury home that works with the way you live. Let us help transform your ideas for a new or improved Highland Park home into reality.

Orren Pickell Creates Highland Park Homes You Want to Come Home To

Highland Park has played an important role in modern-day film, not only spawning creative minds that went on to create movies but also serving as the backdrop for many others—if you’ve ever seen director John Hughes’ iconic 80s movies Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science or Home Alone, you’ve seen Highland Park. And while you may not be aiming for celebrity status with your Highland Park home, it still needs to be the kind of home that makes you feel delighted to retire to at the end of the day, and one in which you look forward to entertaining family and friends.

The expert design team at Orren Pickell will work with you one-on-one to make certain that the custom home we’re creating for your family accurately captures your particular tastes and preferences and truly works for your lifestyle. We’ll share ideas, follow up with questions and will develop a complete picture of your style to ensure we share a common vision.

For more than 40 years, Orren Pickell has had the privilege of working with homeowners in Highland Park and throughout the North Shore. Our services include:

• Custom Home Building
• Remodeling
• Carpentry / Finish Work
• Home Maintenance

Get in touch with us today to help transform your ideas into reality.

Constructing a Craftsman Cottage in Highland Park, IL

Every home is different just like every homeowner is different, and discovering the specific tastes and preferences of a homeowner is key to delivering the perfect home. For this project, the homeowner preferred Craftsman-style cottages but wanted something on a slightly larger scale to fit on his Highland Park, IL lot. After gathering ideas and feedback from the client and sharing thoughts of our own, Orren Pickell’s architects designed a home that contains many of the elements that are unique to Craftsman homes.

In the living room, the large fireplace stands as the focal point of the space, flanked by tall windows on either side. This maintains the Craftsman home tradition of the main living area serving as a space for socializing or conversation, negating the need for televisions or other electronic equipment.

Wainscoting detail in the home’s dining room is also a traditional Craftsman detail, helping provide a stronger sense of purpose and identity to the room. To add additional visual interest to the space, Orren Pickell architects added an arched entryway to the dining area, then mirrored the curved lines in the selection of a simple wrought-iron chandelier over the dining table. Ample outdoor lighting provided by the large windows brings additional warmth to the room.

At the heart of the home is its kitchen, which beautifully blends modern conveniences and rustic touches. Custom cabinetry offers ample storage space in both solid wood and glass-front cabinets, while a kitchen island pulls double-duty as a prep space and quick place to grab a snack. Top-of-the-line stainless steel appliances and granite countertops complete this chef-ready space.

Built-in shelves allow the homeowners a place of honor to display pottery and other objets d’art on the wall perpendicular to a double-set of built-in ovens, which make cooking for a crowd a breeze. Hardwood floors seen in the living and dining room are carried into the kitchen, and bountiful baskets of flowers and fruit give the area a warm, welcoming vibe. And to make the most of the small area between the kitchen and the dining room, the Orren Pickell home builder team installed a butler’s pantry that includes additional preparation and storage space.

Attractive without being ostentatious, the home’s exterior is filled with Craftsman-like touches. From the wood siding to the tapered columns that grace the entryway to the stonework at its foundation, this Highland Park home checked all the Craftsman boxes for its happy homeowner.

Are you looking to bring a few Craftsman details of your own to Highland Park? The architects at Orren Pickell can help guide you from idea to reality. Get in touch with us for a no-obligation consultation; whether you’re looking for a Craftsman-style home or desire a more modern abode, we’ll work with you to create a design that suits your lifestyle.

Formal and French in Highland Park

On another recent project, we worked with homeowners in Highland Park to design a home that fit the family’s sophisticated tastes. Although the family has young children, they still wanted an upscale home filled with the type of luxurious touches that one might find at a high-end French estate. They also wanted several areas of their home to be designed for specific activities for themselves and their children.

In keeping with the homeowner’s desire for a formal, French feel for their home, Orren Pickell created a design with an irregular roofline, including areas with steep pitches and dormer windows. The stonework in the seating area adjacent to the front entrance mirrors the stonework seen on the exterior of the home, providing a feeling of continuity and formality. The inset, arched doorway creates a sense of drama while drawing the eye in, and it also echoes the shapes created by the large arched windows that adorn the home.

The home’s kitchen, with French-provincial style custom painted wood cabinets top-of-the-line stainless steel appliances, is a true chef’s kitchen; but while everything in the kitchen is high-end, the warm hardwood floors and brushed nickel hardware keep the overall feeling welcoming and inviting. The massive kitchen island which would feel out of scale in many spaces feels perfectly at home in this kitchen, where it provides valuable storage and prep space for family meals.

The homeowners wanted some type of backsplash behind the stovetop to protect the wall from both heat and liquids. Orren Pickell designed and installed a custom quilted metal backsplash that echoes the decorative cabinet windowpanes and creates an area of visual interest. Unlike a solid metal backsplash that would have created a sterile, industrial feeling, the simple addition of a quilted pattern softens the piece, making it fit much better with the homeowner’s style and vision.

Clearly, whether the homeowners are fixing a quick snack for the kids, cooking dinner for the family or hosting a soiree for business associates, the kitchen in their Highland Park home will serve them well for years to come.

Custom touches of luxury are abundant throughout the home, and the homeowners’ personal sense of style can be interpreted through the design choices they’ve made. The home’s unique staircase, for example, features a custom brushed nickel railing along with lush leopard-print carpet over dark hardwood steps. A dramatic chandelier awaits guests at the top of the stairs. Elsewhere in the home, a guest bathroom features hand-painted diamond tiles on the walls accompanied by pearl-draped light sconces built into the wall mirror.

Wanting to set aside specific areas for specific activities, the homeowners asked Orren Pickell to design and build family-friendly areas of the home. In addition to a home office, home gym and a “man cave” media room, our architects also created several family-friendly spaces in the basement of the home. Specifically, the casual family room offers mom, dad and friends a comfortable place to get together and have drinks or watch television while the kids have a ball next door in the fully-equipped game room.

When it’s time to get the kids to quiet down for the evening, everyone can retire to the family media room. Not to be confused with the “man cave” media room which features eight televisions, the family media room has tiered recliner seating and a single big screen, perfect for watching your favorite animated movie or enjoying a Netflix binge.

Ideas for Your Highland Park Home?

Whether you’re looking to remodel your Highland Park basement or wanting a custom builder to build your own Highland Park estate, the experienced architects at the Orren Pickell Building Group are uniquely qualified to guide you through the process. Get in touch with us today to learn more about what makes the Orren Pickell experience different.