Timeless homes
North Shore's CBI brings its high-end historic homes to city

by Dan Schuyler

It has been more that 15 years since the principals behind CBI Custom Homes started their business by purchasing a vacant lot at a tax sale with a credit card.

Today, the Marlowe family, Jim and his sons, Brett and Todd, have molded the company into a premier design-build firm that rests on a philosophy of architectural purity and reverence for craft as they cater to buyers of high-end custom homes. CBI has worked primarily on the North Shore, though it also has moved into the city market and plans to open an office in Lincoln Park.

How did CBI get to this point? The Marlowes built a starter home on that first vacant lot. Then they built a few more before graduating to move-ups and eventually, to the luxury-home market.

Coming from a family with four generations of homebuilding experience, an old-school mentality dictated that they go a step further. They determined that CBI would only build period-specific homes, using historical data, artisans, and an experienced staff to assure the accurate reproduction of every detail, no matter what the style or the period.

“We have great respect for our craft, which spans many centuries,” says company President Brett Marlowe. “And as a result, the big difference between our company and other luxury homebuilders is that we now confine ourselves strictly to building period-specific homes.”

From an English Tudor in Lake Forest to a French Revival in Glencoe to an American Shingle in Kenilworth, CBI’s homes have the grandeur and impeccable architectural detailing of bygone eras - steeply pitched roofs and overlapping gables, a seamless mass of natural shingles, the classical columns of a grand entrance. Styles vary, but the emphasis on detail and pure architecture is a constant in CBI homes.

“CBI has created an incredible potpourri of period-specific homes in a relatively short period of time,” says Brett Johnson, director of marketing. “From its inception, the company has experienced exponential growth.”

CBI’s success stems from a variety of factors, according to Rick Anderson, the company’s chief operating officer, all of which in some way relate to the slogan from which the CBI name is derived: “Creating Buildings with Integrity.”

“When we create a home, we at CBI formulate a vision of what we want to do before ever putting anything on paper,” Anderson says. “That vision not only responds to the context in which the home will be built, but it also takes into account the motivation and intent of those who want our product. We truly understand why people want to live in the homes we build.”

Constructing a period-specific home is no mean feat, and the CBI staff brings more than a century of combined experience to each new project, including its own architects, designers and zoning analysts, just to name a few, in order to ensure complete accuracy and the highest quality of construction.

“Building these types of homes requires expertise from many different fields,” says Anderson. “You can’t have a fragmented relationship between those involved, and so we have brought them all together in-house.”

The company also maintains a design center where prospective customers can work with the staff to make decisions concerning layouts, interiors and materials. “The design center has a myriad of cabinet styles, fixtures, tiles, flooring and other samples to help our customers make those decisions that don’t conflict with the authenticity of the home they are building or purchasing,” Johnson says.

Around one-third of CBI’s homes are built for specific clients who may or may not have definitive ideas about the type of home they wish to build. The balance of CBI’s homes is built “on spec,” or without designated buyers, throughout the North Shore.

“The reason we spec such a large percentage of our homes is that it gives us the opportunity to express ourselves artistically,” Brett Marlowe says. “We can be absolutely true to the style of home we are building without regard to the lifestyle or preferences of a particular client.”

The majority of CBI homes are priced from $1.3 million to $2.7 million, and while these remain the core of the company’s market, there is also a call for larger and more expensive homes. “As we’ve grown, we have expanded into the superluxury market,” Johnson says. “By that I mean homes in the six million dollar range and up. The top of the top, so to speak.”

According to Johnson, CBI has built two such high-end homes this year for very high-profile clients and the company plans to spec five more throughout the North Shore in the near future.

As it grows, CBI, www.CBICustomHomes.com, also is spreading its wings. The company will soon be opening an office in the Lincoln Park neighborhood where it is already constructing a spec home on Burling Street near North Avenue.