I build homes
that know
what they are.
the studio
I don't have a signature style. I have a process; rigorous, unhurried, and entirely focused on you.
background
I trained in Paris.
I practice in Chicago.
I spent the first decade of my career working for two of Europe's most exacting residential studios — one in Paris, one in Milan. I learned there that the brief is everything. Not the mood board. Not the material palette. The brief.
I moved to Chicago twelve years ago for a project that changed how I understood space. The city's architecture — its insistence on structure, its relationship with light — has shaped everything I've done since.
I founded Maison Solène to work slowly, with a small number of clients, on projects that matter. I am not interested in volume. I am interested in getting it right.
"The house you live in shapes the life you live in it. That is not a small thing. It deserves to be treated accordingly."
Every year I take on six projects at most. Some clients find me through referral. Some through the work. All of them arrive knowing that this process will ask something of them — and that what they receive in return will be worth it.
I never open a material library before I understand how a client lives. The look follows the logic — not the other way around. Every decision is made against a brief, not a trend.
Strategy
before
aesthetics
I believe in taking things away. The most considered spaces are rarely the fullest ones. Negative space is not emptiness — it is the room the eye needs to rest, and the mind needs to breathe.
Restraint as a design tool
I don't measure success by how a project photographs. I measure it by how my clients feel six months after moving in — when the novelty has passed and the home has become their life.
The feeling is the deliverable
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Every Maison Solène project moves through four distinct phases. There are no shortcuts. Each phase has a purpose, and the quality of what comes next depends entirely on the rigour of what came before.
01.
The Introduction
2-3 weeks
We meet in person or by private call. I want to understand how you live — not how you want your home to look. This conversation becomes the foundation of everything that follows.
02.
The Brief
3-4 weeks
I develop a detailed spatial strategy for the project. This is not a mood board. It is a written document — precise, considered, and agreed upon before any design work begins.
03.
the design
6-8 weeks
With the brief locked, I move into full design development. Materials, spatial planning, lighting, furniture, and every detail in between. One direction. No options menus.
04.
The Realization
variable
I oversee every aspect of the build and installation. I am present. I do not hand off. The project is not complete until the home feels exactly the way the brief said it should.
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A process built
for precision,
not speed.
featured in
"One of Chicago's most quietly influential residential designers — working with deliberate restraint and extraordinary results."
"Maison Solène's work resists the urge to announce itself. That is precisely what makes it impossible to forget."
"A studio defined by rigour, patience, and an unwillingness to separate strategy from craft."