Variation on a Theme by Van Bergen

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Two Oak Park developers hit the books, bump heads with the preservation committee, to give Van Bergen’s middle sister (house) a makeover

By Liz Jaros

Home Book Magazine Contributor

Crediting his own naivety for giving him the guts to take on an architectural revamp in an Oak Park historic district, designer Brett Williams has jumped through a lot of hoops since he and business partner Cindy Risch first purchased the second of three contiguous John S. Van Bergen homes on the 400 block of North Elmwood Avenue.

In the two years that have passed since the duo first fell in love with the symmetrical, Prairie style resident and all its potential, Williams has split quite a few hairs with the Historic Preservation Commission – and made quite a few trips back to the drawing board – but he does not regret a thing.

“Along the way, this became something bigger than us,” he admits. Concession and frustration were a part of the process, yes. “But when you see it all come together as a work of art, especially now toward the end, it’s all worth it... We’re so proud.”

For Williams, who resides in Oak Park but had yet to tackle a rehab here, the Van Bergen house represented a golden opportunity to work in town and make an impact on the local landscape. With his home design business, Element-Worx, founded on principles of artistry and function in harmony, he knew this project would be something he could really sink his creative teeth into. For Risch, a real estate agent with @properties in Chicago, the home’s location and state of disrepair made this a “no-brainer” of a deal. But both admit they had not fully realized what a gem the house was.

A thorough investigation into the life and work of Van Bergen would give them the history and insight needed to honor the architect’s original vision while structurally and functionally bringing the home in the 21st century. So, in phase one of the project, Williams and Risch hit the books.

They learned that Van Bergen, an O.P.R.F. alum, who had worked alongside Prairie greats like Walter Burley Griffin, E.E. Roberts and William E. Drummond before going on to design 29 of his own buildings in Oak Park and River Forest, was very focused on good proportion and solid construction. Their house was the smallest of three “Sister Houses” commissioned by a local florist in 1913.

In drawing up plans for expansion, Williams says one of the biggest challenges he faced was working with the home’s unusually large setback. Van Bergen’s original intention had been for the center home’s green space to serve as common grounds for the trio of residences. And while the front yard was no longer suiting that purpose, and with the H.P.C. prohibiting him from altering the entrance in the way he saw fit, Williams still wanted the landscape to complement the adjacent properties visually.

The exterior gardens – created using principles of Japanese landscape design – should be enjoyed from inside the home as well, Williams believed, because that was one of Van Bergen’s priorities. To achieve this effect, when he mirrored the home’s existing footprint with a 2500 square foot addition, Williams employed a two-story glass atrium to bridge the gap between old and new. And after stripping and refinishing the home’s original windows, he had them reproduced for installation in the new space.

Van Bergen’s light fixture and molding designs were also replicated throughout the home to ensure architectural continuity in a process that would ultimately require a mile and a quarter of oak trim.

In the living room, where Williams restored a Roman brick fireplace that had been walled over with smoked glass, Risch points out how evolution and changes in human behavior had made Van Bergen’s original residence somewhat unfit for habitation in recent years. One bathroom serviced the entire house, she says, and the ceiling heights were low with the second floor doorjambs peaking at just a hair over six feet. “Clearly the house was built for very short people who liked to live in darkness with one child,” she jokes. If ever there was a house deserving of an upgrade, this was it.

Now standing in the kitchen, which had not received an overhaul since the ’30s, Risch explains how the heart of this home was opened up to bring in light and act as the center of a traffic pattern that loops from living room to dining room to great room to veranda and back. “Now you can be in the room that you’re always in anyway and still feel connected to the rest of the house.”

With the end in sight and approximately one year later than Williams and Risch had originally planned, and their negotiation with the Historic Preservation Commission almost behind them, the team is a little weary, but still grateful for the experience. While the project was always intended to be a profitable venture, Risch says, they did not let marketability affect their design decisions. “Our goal was to make this the best house it could be, and I think we’ve done that,” she explains.

“It’s all speculation of course, but I think Van Bergen would be thrilled at what we’ve accomplished here,” says Williams. “One of his things was that houses should be livable and functional. Everything we’ve done has taken that concept to a new level.”