When the humidity’s sky high and the temperature’s in the 90s, Oak Park resident Anne Stevens knows that within a few minutes of donning a bathing suit, she’ll be able to take a refreshing dip in the cool waters of a nearby in-ground swimming pool.
Stevens doesn’t go swimming at a ritzy country club, nor at the neighborhood YMCA. Since June 1992, she has lived in what’s called a coach house apartment, situated in a detached garage adjacent to the 1897 Queen Anne-style residence of her landlords, homeowners Linda and Dick Glennie. And lucky for Stevens, the Glennies have a back yard pool that she’s able to use whenever she feels the need to cool off.
Not all coach houses may be such doll houses, but they do offer renters advantages over living in an apartment building-privacy, sometimes a bargain rent-as well as a few drawbacks.
What exactly is a coach house? There’s not one precise answer to that question. “The Dictionary of Architecture and Construction” comments on the original use of the coach house and uses the terms “coach house” and “carriage house” interchangeably, stating that the structure is “a building or part thereof for housing carriages when not in use.”
Paul Boyd, an associate broker with Kahn Realty in Chicago who is well-acquainted with the history of coach houses, expands on the above definition while offering a broader perspective on the subject:
“I see the genesis of coach houses in two predominant places. One is in the late 1880s and up to about 1910, when grander homes were being built in neighborhoods like Hyde Park, along Sheridan Road and the lakefront, scattered among Chicago streets such as Kenmore and Winthrop Avenues, and in wealthier suburbs such as Evanston. These types of (true) coach houses were carriage houses where the horse and carriage were parked and the servants typically lived in a house situated over the carriage house.” As automobiles came into being, adds Boyd, these structures began housing cars instead of carriages.
On the alley
Another type of coach house, notes Boyd, is the “Depression alley house” that came about in the 1920s and ’30s during difficult economic times. According to Boyd, in many working-class neighborhoods, residents obtained some much-needed income by building houses that were adjacent to alleys. “Some of them were built above a garage where they took a garage space and built a house above it, while other homeowners just built a house near the alley with no garage. Those were (and still are) more prevalent in areas that had working-class housing, which was in Lincoln Park and in Lake View, the exception being along the lakefront where many of the grander mansions were built.”
In the 1970s, Boyd recalls, he lived in a true “Depression alley house” in Lincoln Park, “my own little back yard house that someone built in the 1930s to gain more rent. Though some yuppies later bought it, gutted it and turned it into a house with a garage underneath, when I lived there, there were no cars and it was a true alley house.”
People who choose to live specifically in the city, Boyd notes, “are already accepting a certain amount of density, so the idea of living in quarters that are in back of something is accepted as part of the density pattern of the city.” Living in a separate structure, whether it’s an apartment above a garage or an alley house, Boyd adds, gives people a little bit of privacy and the ability to have a separate apartment.
“There’s a certain cuteness about these types of houses, a coziness about them. They’re very desirable and currently a very popular phenomenon,” he says.
A sense of cuteness and coziness, in fact, was what first attracted Anne Stevens to her 700-square-foot, carpeted coach apartment in Oak Park. She lives in the top part of a detached garage, with cars parked on the bottom level. There’s a small, ground-level entryway with a couple of shelves and a closet, then a stairway that leads up to the actual apartment, which comes with a fully equipped kitchen and bathroom.
The rent for coach houses varies. “Some coach houses are rehabbed,” says Kahn’s Boyd. “They can go for more than $1,000, especially if they’re larger and dramatically done. Unrehabbed coach houses tend to be cheaper ($500 or under), especially if they’re small and stuck in the back of a house.”
Reasonable rent
Stevens pays $425 in rent and pays for her own gas and electric bills. This past April, she renewed her lease for one year.
“The thing that got me,” she says, “was that the apartment has pink walls and a window seat, and the kitchen has wallpaper with hearts. And it’s very much like a bed and breakfast: The bathroom sink has a separate hot and cold faucet and a huge, old-fashioned (freestanding) bathtub. And there’s a flower box by the window where the squirrels come and visit. It’s just a darling apartment.”
Like many coach apartment dwellers, Stevens also relishes living in her “own spot” and not having to listen to the noise of neighbors. “In apartment complexes where I’ve lived, it drove me crazy with all the noise of people walking above my apartment.”
However, while Stevens enjoys her independence, because her family lives out-of-state, she likes the fact that a close-knit family lives just a stone’s throw away from her living quarters. “I have my independence, but I have the advantage of living near a family (including four kids) that I can interact with. I miss my relatives and living in a coach house, I like having that family feeling.”
As for the luxury of having a pool nearby, Stevens can swim there whenever she wants, unless she brings more than two guests. In that case, she needs to give the Glennies advance notice.
While many coach house apartments are about the size of a typical studio, others contain considerably more space.
Freelance designer, editor and researcher Bundy Trinz currently resides in an apartment complex in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, but at one time, lived for 3 1/2 years in a two-bedroom coach house in Lake View that housed no cars and was situated in back of a two-flat building. Trinz used the smaller bedroom for sleeping and the larger for her studio.
“The coach house was cute, it was private, and it had incredible storage space,” says Trinz, who had spent her childhood living in a house, and as an adult, residing in apartment complexes. “There was an almost street-level basement that covered the full length and width of the house, as well as an attic that had the same dimensions. The living space took up one-third of the house and the storage space, two-thirds; as an art director and prop person, it was great for me. I had lots of storage and work space.”
Like other coach apartment dwellers, Trinz appreciated living in a house that was all her own. “Aside from the space, the main advantage of renting a coach house was living in my own house at apartment prices.” (Trinz paid around $400 a month when she first started renting the apartment.)
“It was a structure that I didn’t share with anyone, that I had completely to myself.”
Pizza problems
Though many coach house apartment dwellers enjoy living in a space that they can totally call their own, there are drawbacks. Anne Stevens says that receiving her mail at her landlord’s house is no problem (there are no address numbers on Steven’s coach house apartment), but she does admit that the pizza delivery man sometimes has a problem. And living right over a garage, Stevens can sometimes hear the cars, especially if she decides to sleep late. Car fumes, though, are not a problem, she says.
Stevens must also take her laundry to a nearby laundromat.
And because of her apartment’s limited space, Stevens finds it difficult to entertain guests, because “your room is your whole house. The apartment’s small and probably wouldn’t work for more than one person. . . .”
Trinz had to contend with a Doberman next door that barked a lot, and the less than advantageous view that she had. “I looked at the back of other people’s houses,” she recalls.
For homeowners who rent various types of coach houses to tenants, there can be many advantages. For most, the biggest plus is the additional income. “Getting income from the coach house was a primary reason why we bought the house,” says Glennie.
Glennie and his wife, Linda, also enjoy interacting with the tenants, single people who have been primarily between the ages of 25 and 30. “The people we’ve rented the apartment to have been nice people who we’ve socialized with, conversed with when we’ve seen them outside,” he says.
As for the reasons why renters enjoy living in a coach apartment, Glennie has his own theories: “Aside from being able to use the pool, tenants like the apartment because it is a freestanding dwelling. They are entirely independent, so they can play their own music without the fear of disturbing anybody, and come and go as they please. Tenants like that.”
“Tenants have to understand,” Glennie adds, “that we’re a family who has four kids. If that bothers them, they shouldn’t rent the apartment. On the other hand, we’re going to give them a good deal of freedom, we’re not going to put constraints on what they do.”
