Beyond Game Day: Creating a Home Near Notre Dame
For many families and fans, the University of Notre Dame is more than a place they visit. It's where traditions begin, friendships outlast graduation, and families return year after year.
A home near Notre Dame can become the gathering place for football weekends, graduations, reunions and campus events, or simply serves as a great reason to come back to campus more often. But, creating that kind of home from afar can also be a significant undertaking.
At Maple & White Design, we've had the privilege of helping Notre Dame alumni, parents, families and fans create homes near campus that are beautiful, welcoming, and ready to enjoy from the moment they arrive.
A Close-to-Campus Home That Feels Like Home
The best Notre Dame homes aren't simply places to stay on football weekends. They're where friends gather before walking to the stadium, Friday night dinners last for hours, and Saturday mornings start with a house bustling with guests.
We approach these homes much as we would any primary residence: learning how our clients truly live, and discussing how they entertain, who will use the home and what they want it to feel like. That might mean generous gathering spaces, furniture selected with a house full of family in mind, flexible sleeping arrangements, and the small details that make hosting feel effortless.
A client's connection to Notre Dame or Saint Mary’s often shapes the design, too, but those references feel most natural when they're personal rather than themed: a subtle nod to blue and gold, a piece of Notre Dame art the family already owned, or a detail tied to their own history with the University.
Whether it’s a game-day home or an everyday retreat, thoughtful design creates spaces where people naturally come together. From welcoming living areas to layered, personal details, Maple & White designs homes for gathering, relaxing and making memories.
Photography: Sarah Shields Photgraphy; bottom left Traci Shupert
Designing From a Distance
Many of our Notre Dame home clients live hundreds or thousands of miles away, which means they need more than design expertise: they need someone on the ground in South Bend.
Our team handles what our clients can't easily manage from a distance: coordinating with trusted builders and tradespeople, making finish and furnishing selections, tracking deliveries, overseeing installation, styling the finished home, and solving the details that inevitably come up along the way.
Instead of spending a rare trip to South Bend checking on construction or chasing down a contractor, our clients get to do what they came for: walk in and enjoy the house.
Personal details give this close to campus home its character. Stone the homeowners sourced themselves in Montana became the centerpiece of the great room fireplace., while a bespoke Guinness bar near the great room gives a playful nod to Notre Dame's Irish heritage. A window seat looks out over campus, while a luxury cantina room completes the home’s entertaining space. Photography: Traci Shupert
Designed as a warm, welcoming home base for a Dallas-based family with two children studying at Notre Dame, this South Foundry apartment pairs thoughtful details and layered finishes with comfortable spaces for everyday living, game weekends and gathering as a family. Photography: Annie Morin
The best gathering spaces are only part of the story. Thoughtful bedrooms, beautiful baths and quiet retreats make the restful moments just as inviting. Photography: Sarah Shields
What Our Clients Say:
“Working with Maple & White on our home near Notre Dame was, without exaggeration, the most seamless experience I’ve had with a project of this scale…Managing the renovation of a second home from a distance, I was only able to be there in person once, it could have been stressful, but it never was. Maple & White stepped in as if they were us, making the calls, catching the details, and representing our interests. If an issue came up, I heard about it proactively, with a clear explanation and a solution already in hand, never a surprise after the fact. They understood our style almost immediately, and it showed. The space feels distinctly ours while still fitting the character of a home near campus. They made decisions easy, too: posting items to shared boards so I could compare options side by side and remember what we’d already chosen for each room.
They worked with our contractors seamlessly, keeping everyone aligned and the work moving without friction, and despite the scope, they were fast, responsive, and finished on time, which anyone who has done a renovation knows is nothing short of a miracle.
I’ve worked with multiple designers across NYC and the Hamptons over the years, and Maple & White is simply the best, - I wouldn’t want to take on another project without them.”
“The Maple & White team was so thoughtful about designing multipurpose spaces: rooms that feel cozy when it’s just us, but effortlessly expand when we have a house full of guests for game day or a family reunion.”
“Maple & White managed the entire project remotely. I was in Dallas the whole time, and everything was handled through Zoom meetings, emails and phone calls. The team understood our vision perfectly and translated our ideas into a cohesive, timeless space that feels far more custom than a project done at a distance.”
Featured in Indianapolis Monthly
Maple & White's work with Notre Dame-affiliated families was recently featured by Indianapolis Monthly in its story, “Step Inside University-Inspired South Bend Homes.”
The feature takes readers inside two Maple & White-designed South Bend homes and explores the thoughtful ways each reflects its owners' connection to Notre Dame.
[Read the Indianapolis Monthly feature →].
Thinking About a Home Near the University of Notre Dame?
Whether you're building a home near the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Mishawaka, Granger or Southwest Michigan, purchasing a townhome for football and campus weekends, or transforming an existing property into a place your family can return to for years to come, Maple & White Design can help make the process seamless and enjoyable.
After all, when you only have so many weekends in South Bend, you shouldn't spend them managing your house—you should be enjoying every moment.
Let's talk about your close-to-campus home. Contact us.
