Chicago's western suburbs
Dara Agruss Design is a full-service interior design studio based in Elmhurst, working on whole-home projects, gut renovations and new construction across DuPage County, western Cook County and the city of Chicago.
We take on a small number of projects each year so they get our full attention: millwork drawn to the inch, fabrics chosen in person, and an install day when the whole house comes together. And because the studio is central to the region, a site visit takes minutes rather than half a day, anywhere from Chicago's Gold Coast to the western estates.
Recent work
Bright classic in Elmhurst, dramatic estate work in Oak Brook, and a mix of gut renovations and new construction across DuPage and western Cook counties.
What we do
Most of our clients come to us for the whole house, not a single room. Full-service means we carry the project from the first floor plan to the day the last lamp is placed:
You make the decisions that matter to you. We handle the several hundred that don't.
How we work
The same process for every project, whether it's one room, a whole house, or a new build.
A short conversation about your home, your timeline and the scope you have in mind. We tell you honestly whether we're the right studio for it.
We walk your home, measure, photograph and talk through how each room actually needs to work for the people in it.
Floor plans, elevations, renderings, finishes and a complete furniture plan, presented together, room by room, in one sitting.
We place every order, track every lead time, receive and inspect every piece, and coordinate directly with your builder and trades.
Everything arrives, gets placed and gets styled. You leave in the morning and come home to a finished house.
The region
Chicago's western suburbs cover the widest range of residential architecture in the Midwest. Century-old Tudors, Colonials and Queen Anne Victorians sit a few blocks from Sears kit houses, mid-century bungalows and 21st-century traditionals. Estate-scale custom homes in Oak Brook and Burr Ridge share the same design market as vintage greystones in Lincoln Park.
That variety is the interesting part. A 1920s Elmhurst Tudor and a 2024 Cherry Farm new build has the opposite brief. One wants its character respected, the other needs character added deliberately. We work on both, often in the same year.
Where we work
Studio in Elmhurst; projects across DuPage County, western Cook County and Chicago. Each page below is written for the housing stock, neighbourhoods and design questions of that specific town.
Our studio is in Elmhurst, and we work across Chicago's western suburbs (Elmhurst, Hinsdale, Oak Brook, Naperville, Glen Ellyn, Downers Grove, Western Springs, La Grange and Burr Ridge) plus the city of Chicago itself.
Most of our projects are in DuPage and western Cook counties, within a 30-minute drive of the studio. For city projects we plan install-day logistics up front: service elevators, loading docks, certificates of insurance, so the day is coordinated rather than improvised.
Yes. About two-thirds of our work is in the western suburbs and one-third is inside Chicago: vintage greystones in Lincoln Park, pre-war co-ops in the Gold Coast, and newer high-rise homes. City projects share the same team as suburban ones.
In vintage buildings and co-ops we plan around alteration agreements, approved work windows and elevator bookings, and those constraints shape the schedule as much as the design.
Both, and often in the same year. Preserved houses in Hinsdale's Robbins Park, Naperville's historic district and Glen Ellyn need one instinct: respect the character, work inside the existing plan. New builds in Cherry Farm and Oak Brook need the opposite: add warmth, texture and detail deliberately, ideally before the drywall goes up.
On new construction we come in during framing to select finishes, lighting, plumbing, cabinetry and millwork before anything is ordered. The change orders that hurt most are the ones triggered after drywall.
Most of our work is whole-home. We take on full-house furnishing projects, gut renovations and new construction, and we deliberately keep the number of concurrent projects small so each one gets senior attention rather than being handed down.
Single-room projects are possible when the room is a significant one: a kitchen, a primary suite, a dining room built for entertaining.
