Your head says build a new house with a three-car garage and PVC pipes. But your heart is set on an established neighborhood with tree-lined streets, sidewalks meant for strolling and one-of-a-kind old homes.
As long as homeowners yearn to combine the best of the old and the new, they’ll probably keep searching for the definitive answer to one of life’s big questions: Is there really an easy way to get mature landscaping without the bad plumbing?
Homeowners like Roberta and Jack Eisinger say it’s no problem-just tear down the old house and put up a new one in its place. That’s exactly what the Eisingers did after they decided to get married last year.
They knew Jack’s three-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot Glenview house wasn’t big enough for their new “blended” family with seven older children who bunk in on a rotating basis. But they still didn’t want to build a new house in an outlying suburb that would mean a long downtown commute every day for Jack.
“We looked for a new house that could fit the needs of our on-again, off-again family, and we couldn’t find anything that worked out,” Roberta Eisinger said.
After searching for a year for a new house in towns close to Chicago, the Eisingers finally decided to stay put and tear down Jack’s 1950s-style ranch on a slab. What stands in its place now is a new four-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot showplace.
“We have an acre lot with huge older trees. You wouldn’t believe that something so secluded could be this close to the city. It has worked out beautifully,” Jack Eisinger said.
The Eisingers’ “teardown”-the term commonly used to describe the practice of demolishing an old house so the lot can be used for a new house-is just one example of a trend that seems to be gaining steam in the Chicago area.
A spot check of local building commissions shows that demolition of single-family residences is up in suburbs such as Hinsdale, older North Shore communities and some near North Side neighborhoods of Chicago where vacant land simply doesn’t exist.
In Hinsdale, for example, 62 demolition permits were issued in 1993, up from 48 in 1992. And 28 have been granted there so far this year. Glencoe, which previously averaged about 10 demolitions a year, has had 17 applications to date this year alone.
Although teardowns may signify nothing more than a housing inventory that’s showing its age, the site of wrecking balls in old beloved neighborhoods doesn’t come without a twinge or two.
Builders like to think they are engaged in “house harvesting”-culling the housing stock’s herd of its less useful members. But preservationists and some long-term residents think teardowns are killing the character of their neighborhoods with modern monstrosities that just don’t fit in.
Cheryl Bradford calls her contemporary house-the result of a teardown-a California dream with large open spaces, high ceilings and five bedrooms. But just as much as she loves her new house-which sits next to a small Colonial and across the street from a well-seasoned stucco-she loves its location in an old part of Glencoe.
“This is a Norman Rockwell neighborhood,” Bradford said, expressing the belief that her spot, with its shady streets, big old houses and shops within walking distance, was plucked right out of a painting.
Tim Thompson, a builder in Hinsdale who has done a number of teardowns in the Chicago area, observes that from an emotional standpoint, people prefer living in an older community.
“They like a quaint little Mayberry where there aren’t so many changes. They feel like they can stop time,” he said.
Matthew Lawton turned back the clock a bit when he bought a 1922-vintage, Dutch Colonial in Hinsdale, the town he grew up in and loved. But he also had his eye on the future because the 1,500-square-foot house sat on a big corner lot, a fact that allowed him to build a 4,000-square-foot replacement.
“The lot is 100-by-130 feet and has seven mature elm trees and a 40-foot blue spruce. It is a gorgeous piece of property,” Lawton said.
Although it’s sometimes hard to find lots as big as Lawton’s in old neighborhoods, builders say that teardowns require a fair amount of space because the new house is usually at least 1,000 square feet larger-and takes up more ground space-than the old house.
James McNaughton of James McNaughton Builders Inc., Hinsdale, thinks the smallest workable teardown lot in the suburbs is about 50-by-130 feet. In Chicago, where every inch counts, suitable teardowns are found on standard lots of about 25-by-130 feet, but the new house typically takes up most of the land.
While the size of the lot may determine whether a teardown is possible, the size of one’s bank account is even more crucial.
Sheepish homeowners don’t like to reveal how much their teardowns cost, but builders say the total package-old lot and new home-usually starts at about $800,000 and goes up from there.
The obvious reason for the big price tag is that the cost of a lot in a highly desirable location ranges anywhere from $250,000 to $500,000.
“The max you are going to pay for the old house is somewhere in the $500,000 range, so you can turn around and sell the new house for $1.5 million,” noted Merle Kirsner-Styer, with Kahn Realty Inc. in Highland Park, who works with builders that speculate in teardowns.
“It makes no sense to put up a new spec house that costs more than that because it’s too expensive, and no one will buy it.”
If a homeowner manages to jump the price hurdle, building a new house in an old neighborhood has other possible stumbling blocks, usually in the form of neighbors who don’t like being crowded by a big house next door, and preservationists who want to maintain the character of the old neighborhood.
In a fairly typical scenario, one Chicago couple found themselves struggling through the zoning process because the neighbors on both sides of the property objected to the size of the new house. The neighbors didn’t just complain that they might be squeezed, but thought the huge replacement would even steal the light from their yards.
While individual battles like that are usually settled by scaling back the size of the new house, some towns are getting more aggressive in regulating the teardown process itself.
Municipal governments-always walking a fine line between property rights and the community good-loosely regulate teardowns through a variety of measures. Demolition permits are issued only after waiting periods which allow for community comment, and zoning regulations often stipulate setbacks and cap the size of the new house.
In what has become a hotly contested issue there, Glencoe recently extended its waiting period on demolition permits from 30 to 120 days. The village is hoping to quell growing fears about the number of teardowns-a trend that some residents suspect is being fueled by builders who speculate in teardown properties.
“Part of the concern is that there is a threat on the history and character of the community,” said Peter Cummins, village manager of Glencoe, who adds that new architectural standards now under consideration would improve the appearance of the new homes that he said have tended to be too big and too boxy.
While most suburban ordinances regulating teardowns tend to lack real bite and demolition permits are rarely denied, the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois will step in at the request of local groups to help save a significant building.
“We try to get involved with the building owners early and show them alternatives that will achieve what they want without destroying the fabric of the neighborhood,” said Carol Wyant, executive director of the 2,300-member Chicago-based group.
Wyant points to the Louis B. Kuppenheimer mansion built in 1937 and designed by architect David Adler. The Winnetka house was slated for demolition, but Wyant’s organization convinced the property owners to donate the house to the council, which in turn gave it to people who paid to have it moved.
A few suburbs, such as Evanston and Oak Park, aren’t willing to leave historic buildings to the largesse of homeowners and have instituted outright bans on teardowns in designated preservation districts. Likewise, the city of Chicago now has 27 neighborhoods-the Old Town Triangle being one-where old houses and buildings are protected.
Although preservationists working in unprotected areas like to push for a remodel rather than a teardown, some homeowners say the houses set for the wrecking ball just aren’t worth saving.
Lawton in Hinsdale at first thought he might be able to renovate his old house. But when the price tag for the rehab came in just 15 percent under the cost of the new house, he says the decision to tear down, which he’s never regretted, was easy.
“When the guy tore it down, he said it was one of the most poorly constructed houses he had ever seen. It only took him an hour to tear it down and load the trucks,” he said.
Although a fair number of teardowns may not be worth saving, the notable exceptions have turned up the heat enough to make builders more sensitive.
Eisinger says her builder, Orren Pickell of Vernon Hills, made the new house look more like a one-story to fit into an area dominated by ranches. And Thompson photographs adjacent homes to try and use some of their architectural elements in the new house.
