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About the studio
Founded in 2011. Still in the same building, still answering our own phone.
Fifteen years of refusing to hand off the problem.
Elizabeth Miller spent the first fifteen years of her career on the dealer side of the commercial furniture business, running national fit-out programmes for clients who all eventually asked the same question: why does nobody own the whole thing?
In 2011 she took a lease at 55 East Monroe Street with two project managers, one draughtsman and a rule that Lion & Jo would never blame a subcontractor in front of a client. Fifteen years later there are nineteen of us, the rule still stands, and 94% of our work comes from people we have already worked with or been introduced to.
We are deliberately not a large firm. Elizabeth is personally involved in every project over $250,000, which is most of them, and she is the person who signs the final account. That is a constraint on how much work we can take, and we have decided we are fine with that.
The name, since people always ask: Lion for the Art Institute’s bronze pair two blocks north, and Jo for Elizabeth’s grandmother Josephine, a Chicago seamstress who taught her that a straight seam is not a matter of opinion.
Four principles we actually enforce.
One number to call
You get a named project manager and Elizabeth’s mobile. There is no account team, no ticket queue and no situation in which two of our suppliers argue and it becomes your problem.
Open book, always
Every trade quote we receive is available to you on request. Our margin is a disclosed percentage, agreed before contract. Nothing is hidden in general conditions.
Bad news early
If a date is going to slip or a cost is going to rise, you hear it the day we know, with options attached. Silence is the only thing we treat as a fireable offence.
Finish properly
The last 2% of a fit-out is where reputations are made. We budget real time for the punch list instead of pretending it will not exist.
Elizabeth Miller, Owner & Principal
Elizabeth founded Lion & Jo in 2011 and remains its sole owner. She holds a BFA in Interior Architecture from the University of Illinois and has worked in Chicago commercial interiors since 1996. She sits on the tenant advisory panel of a downtown building association and mentors two students a year through a local design apprenticeship programme.
She is contactable directly — not through a form queue — at Elizabeth@lion-jo.aljarash.com or +1 (408) 801-3129.
Behind her: three project managers, two designers, a procurement lead, two superintendents, an accounts team of two and a warehouse crew in Bedford Park. Everyone is a direct employee.
Registrations, licences and cover.
Illinois GC licence
IL-GC-118422, renewed annually
City of Chicago
General contractor registration, Class A
Insurance
$5M general liability, $2M umbrella, full workers’ comp
Entity
Illinois LLC, EIN 88-4029117, formed 2011
Tell us about the space and we’ll tell you what it takes.
Send drawings, a lease plan, or just the square footage. Elizabeth reviews every enquiry personally and replies within one business day with an honest read on budget and programme.