The Lincoln Park town house vanished almost as quickly as Sasha Adler fell for it. One look was all it took for the AD PRO Directory designer to become convinced she’d found her family’s forever home—only to watch the listing go dark days later.
The residence, a pair of combined 1800s row homes in the leafy Chicago enclave, checked all the boxes: within walking distance of her three kids’ school, original architectural details intact, historic block, and ample outdoor space. It even allowed the entire family to have all their bedrooms on the same floor—unusual for a town house. The home’s price tag, which exceeded the designer’s initial budget, barely registered. “I was just obsessed with it, so I showed it to my husband,” she recalls. “And then as quickly as we saw it, it disappeared from the market.”
Having lived in the Lincoln Park home for 35 years, the would-be sellers were having second thoughts about parting with the special address. A bit deflated, the Adlers continued their property search, but “I was like, ‘That’s our house,’” the designer explains. “I’m a big manifest, spiritual kind of person.” She put a photo of the exterior up in her office and found excuses to drive by. Finally, Adler went so far as to send the owners a picture of her family with a note listing all the reasons they were meant to live there. Along with a full-price offer, the heartfelt plea worked.
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With the contract signed and keys in hand, Adler set about doing the work her firm is known for—highlighting classic structural elements, preserving history through painstaking refurbishment, and formulating the perfect mix of modern, bespoke, and antique elements. With renovations running over the year they initially planned for, the Adlers were obliged to move in for the final six months of work and soon developed a familial rapport with the team of tradespeople arriving each day at 5 a.m. “Do you remember in Murphy Brown how the painter lived with them?” Adler jokes of the sitcom. “Our painter is now part of our family.”
The kitchen and bathrooms were fully renovated, the original wide-plank floors throughout were scraped by hand, and windows overlooking the rear garden were expanded, flooding the breakfast room with natural light. “We didn’t move any walls, but we touched every surface,” she notes, praising her contractor, Tip Top Builders. As with most exacting designers, Adler was her own toughest client, because, she says, “You’ve seen everything out there and ask yourself: What do I like best?” Fortunately, her firm’s design director, Alison Wilcox, with whom Adler’s worked for 23 years (initially at Nate Berkus Associates), wasn’t afraid to offer tough love. Wilcox’s advice? You’re only doing this once—don’t buy something temporary you’re going to replace later or put off major work. Refreshing the basement level, Adler now admits, is not something she’d ever want to tackle down the line.
Appointed in all of Adler’s favorite patterns and paint colors and furnished with beloved pieces both bespoke and long-held, the end result is the embodiment of her aesthetic perspective—and a helpful place to bring potential clients. More than anything, though, the grateful designer delights in the fact that it’s where her older daughter walks home for lunch on school days, where her son plays basketball with friends in the backyard, where her eight-year-old has space for all of her Barbie playhouses, and where she and her husband, Greg, can easily entertain on both grand and intimate scales.
Soon after the Adlers settled in, they received a photo of another young family enclosed with a note, expressing keen interest in the home and asking for their ultimate sale price. “‘There’s no number,’” Adler remembers telling Greg. Maybe someday, but for now, she says, “We haven’t gotten to enjoy it yet—and I hope we’re here for a very long time.”
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