Julie Mann considers herself an anomaly. As one of the only (if not the only) female general contractors working in luxury construction on Chicago’s North Shore, Mann—who started the ironically named Mann-Made Spaces, Inc. a little more than a year ago—is well aware of the fact that she’s working in what is considered a man’s world.
“Construction is difficult for a woman to get into if you don’t come up through the trades or through engineering,” said Mann, who cut her teeth as an engineer, eventually designing oil refineries for Amoco before quitting to become a full-time mom. “Once you work on an oil refinery, which is like building a bomb, building a house is like a coloring book,” she said. “It’s a little more fun than doing a refinery.”
Mann hardly sees her sex as a setback; instead, she applies a woman’s unique touch to the homes she builds. After nearly 10 years as a stay-at-home mom, Mann had accumulated a long list of annoyances around the house that she knew she could improve upon.
“Being a female, living in a home and raising kids, I live in a home differently than I would say a male general contractor does,” Mann said. “I place things in the home that are convenient for the homemaker, for the person who is there every day.”
When Mann-Made Spaces, Kirwin Builders and more than 40 specialty subcontractors built the $3.5 million spec house at 826 Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka (currently being marketed by The Hudson Company), Mann was able to incorporate the “fun” little nuances she thinks a woman will appreciate, like light dimmers and music in the laundry room.
“I do laundry at five o’clock in the morning,” she said. “The last thing I want to do is have a full 75-watt bulb staring at me when I hate being in there to begin with, so let’s do the low lighting and the music, and you’re a little bit happier being in the laundry room.”
Special niches are designed to hide the motley assortment of stuff that children accumulate. She also built the second bathroom right off the mudroom to avoid kids tracking dirt through the house. Mann grew tired of having small appliances, or even cell phone and palm pilot chargers, cluttering the kitchen and bathroom counters, so she allowed for electrical outlets in the pantries and closets. “All the unsightly things that don’t belong out can be put away and are still operational,” she said.
Her full-height cabinetry has interior lighting and space for special-occasion dinnerware and stemware. All exterior lighting can be controlled by interior switches, which Mann finds especially helpful during the holidays. Rooms are designed and windows set with furniture placement in mind. The master bedroom has light switches set at the bed’s height, outlets arranged for nightstands and multiple cable outlets allowing for flexibility in placing an armoire with a television. She also designed outlets in the floor to avoid having to run wires across a room.
“As a female, I find these things irritating in a home,” she said. “I’m not faulting men, but they don’t live with it every day, so I don’t think it irritates them. A lot of men don’t consider how you’re going to live in a home, just how you’re going to build it.”
Mann, who is in the process of drawing another house, said she would love to someday work closely with a female buyer, marrying ideas to build the ultimate homemaker’s dream house.
“Not that men don’t do a fabulous job,” she said.