Owner
CurrentSam Marts grew up in a small Ohio town that saw its architectural zenith in the Greek Revival period. As a paperboy, I associated these grand homes with history, and I created my own stories about them. Biking around town I was always curious as to how this community got to be the way it was. I went on to study architecture at Miami University (Ohio) and the Architectural Association in London (England) and after graduation went to Pittsburgh as a VISTA Volunteer Architect. In 1974 I came to Chicago to join a great community of past and present architects. I have worked in Chicago’s biggest offices on huge, complex projects as well as in small design studios creating restaurants as people-oriented exotic places which are still functional. Through all of this I have been involved with renovating and rehabilitating the Chicago’s built environment.Outside of Chicago, I was commissioned in 1985 by Robert Foulkes of White Oak Timber Frames to design a passive solar “Cape Cod” in Ann Arbor (Michigan) and I started Sam Marts Architects in 1987 with the plan of continuing to work alongside White Oak Timber Frames. Our relationship blossomed, and I formed Sam Marts Architects and Planners Ltd. in 1991 with Robert Foulkes as the Planner (and framer). Our planning adventures have included participating in a number of urban design charettes, that are intense team efforts to extend and reinforce an “urban” world while simultaneously preserving a “rural” environment. Currently, Sam Marts Architects and Planners is a co-developer of property in Empire (Michigan) that will be a village extension surrounded by Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.I look forward to working with people who wish to make their built environments fit them better now and in the future.
