Our Forthcoming Book on Chicago Homes.

From Agate Publishing, Fall 2025.

Chicago is famous for its architecture. People move here for it, form cults around particular styles, and fight with New Yorkers about who built it first and best. This forthcoming book, co-authored with Carla Bruni and illustrated by me, takes Chicagoans through the rich variety of residential architecture that they walk past every day in their own neighborhoods.

We're creating this book for the curious Chicagoan or visitor to flip through and finally learn why that Foursquare or Italianate looks the way it does and why it always makes their pupils dilate. Why are our lots so narrow? How many kit homes were built? What kind of stone is “greystone”?

This book is filled with stories, images, and a deep appreciation for those everyday buildings that stitch our lives together. Moving from Chicago’s earliest days to World War II lets us to show and tell the stories of more than forty percent of Chicago’s housing supply and addresses the homes most Chicagoans have lived in, and what is most recognizable as distinctly “Chicago” to visitors. Combining our decades of experience in historic preservation and illustration, this is the evergreen book that every Chicagoans will turn to for well-researched, entertaining, and often surprising answers to their questions about what makes a home a Chicago home.

What's Inside:

• A Style-by-Style Breakdown.  Learn the defining features of Chicago’s most iconic home types, from bungalows to two-flats to Victorian mansions.
• Historical Context. Discover how key events like the Great Chicago Fire and the boom of the 1920s influenced home design and construction.
• Detailed Illustrations and Diagrams. Experience each architectural style through meticulously hand-drawn illustrations that bring these homes to life.
• A Neighborhood Lens. See how Chicago’s housing evolution is reflected in its unique and varied communities.

About My Co-Author:

Carla Bruni has spent close to twenty years preserving, studying, and writing about historic architecture across dozens of U.S. cities and four continents. She teaches graduate students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she holds a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation. Carla also works to support the 30,000+ members of the Chicago Bungalow Association, overseeing energy efficiency retrofits, creating history and home maintenance resources, and leading the charge to list thousands of vintage homes on the National Register of Historic Places. Her professional work and involvement in community repair and revitalization has taken her to every corner of Chicago, her native city, where she currently resides with Mr Nancy, her above-average cat.

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