Ask Lisa Zebovitz of Oak Park to describe her home and she simply says, “It’s a big surprise.” She’s right. From the outside, hers is a typical Chicago-style brick bungalow, dating to 1927. Once inside, though, the term “basic bungalow” just doesn’t apply.
Three days after she closed on the house, work crews moved in to start a massive renovation project.
Conceived by Chicago architect David Seglin, the plan called for a contemporary use of all the space.
Walls separating rooms on the first floor came tumbling down. The long and narrow, railroad-car feel that is typical of bungalows disappeared.
The roof was raised to make a complete second story out of what used to be a sloped attic. The basement was finished into a combination rumpus room/guest room.
Nine months later, the home had “grown” not by expansion, but by “vision”–from 1,600 square feet of livable space all on one floor to 3,400 square feet on three levels.
Zebovitz and Seglin are not the only ones who are seeing beyond “basic” in bungalow.
Across the Chicago area and the country, a growing number of homeowners (and architects) are rescuing the ubiquitous bungalow from functional obsolescence.
In Hinsdale, Bob and Kelley Gibson bought what nobody else wanted: A quirky, 80-year-old, California-style bungalow. For them, renovation has become a way of life.
And in Chicago’s Ravenswood Manor neighborhood, Jan Stempel and her husband, Ross Patronsky, tranformed a small kitchen into the focal point of their bungalow.
“This is potentially the largest segment of the old-house restoration movement,” says George Murray, editor of American Bungalow, a quarterly magazine that got started in 1990 and has become both bible and grapevine to some 6,500 bungalow-lovers who faithfully subscribe.
Murray bases his bold statement on queries made by the magazine to historical societies and preservation groups across the country. Why the bungalow?
“It offers a human scale. You really feel comfortable in these homes,” says Murray, noting the pomp and formality of Victorian houses, which predated bungalows.
There’s the charm factor, too.
“There is a lot of wood, a lot of built-ins (in these homes),” Murray adds, placing the development of the bungalow, historically, right alongside the American Arts and Crafts movement.
“Today,” he continues, “people can go back to the bungalow and find it really affordable, or comparatively affordable, and so well-made. It offers a link to the past. It’s a feeling of coming home.”
An early 20th Century boom
In the Chicago area, there are a lot of bungalows to come home to.
The city and first ring of suburbs are full of “bungalow belts,” says Scott La France, curator of the Charles F. Murphy Architectural Studies Center at the Chicago Historical Society.
These were the neighborhoods being developed during the late 1910s and ’20s, when the entire country was swept up in the bungalow boom, which delivered an affordable, functional, single-family home to the emerging middle class.
Typical of all bungalow styles: 1 1/2 floors (raw, but potentially convertible attic or dormer space counts for the extra half floor); a long, sloped roof; a deep porch; and irregular-sized rooms.
In spite of their rock-solidness and all the wonderful wood and artful windows that can’t be found in new homes, vintage bungalows aren’t necessarily timeless.
“They’re archaic,” says Seglin of HSP architects of Chicago. “They’re not designed for the lifestyles of today. They have one bathroom, all the living and sleeping areas are on one floor-the main floor. And the bedrooms are small.”
Thus, his fix for the Oak Park bungalow.
He moved the three bedrooms off the main floor and up to the newly heightened second floor.
He elevated the bathroom count to 3 1/2.
And on the main floor, he created a free flow of living spaces that move from a formal area for entertaining in the front to the inner sanctum of family life as you proceed to the back. There, you’ll find a circle of kitchen, family room, breakfast area.
Only a sprinkling of columns and half walls interrupt the movement between spaces. Natural light falls in shafts from deep light wells carved into the new roof.
“There are no halls on this floor,” says Zebovitz, an environmental attorney. “I like the circular motion.”
So does her daughter, Lily. At 5 years old, she maneuvers through the spaces without obstacles and finds the original hardwood floors a fine rink for “sock skating.”
Mom notes the plus side of all the openness: It keeps Lily in eyeshot of her and her husband, Steve Zebovitz.
1,600 hours of labor of love
Bob and Kelley Gibson of Hinsdale are immersed in an equally complex renovation of their circa 1914 bungalow.
Evanston-based architect Thomas Heinz, who specializes in the Prairie School style, designed the remake. But it is Bob Gibson who is executing it.
A business executive by day, Gibson is a handy-and-enjoys-it type of guy in his off time. He’s doing most of the actual construction work himself on nights and weekends and has kept track of his labor of love on the home computer: 1,600 hours over four years; $50,000 in expenses.
The Gibsons bought the house because it offered more space and the same neighborhood as their former Victorian home.
The house had one major flaw, though.
“It was ugly, really ugly,” says Kelley Gibson with a laugh.
The all-stucco exterior was cracking and falling off from a poor patch job done years ago. The inside was a puzzle.
Theirs is a California- or Craftsman-style bungalow. It’s a more sprawling type of home than the Chicago bungalow, set on a more sizable lot and with a full second floor already in place.
But the choppy floor plan that is characteristic of all bungalows existed here in fine form.
The master bedroom was a hulk of a room on the main floor with no access to the adjacent bathroom. The kitchen was a dark, cramped space with no room for eating.
And, in spite of the fact that a two-story addition afforded three ample bedrooms upstairs, the two bathrooms that were tucked in the sloping dormers were not amiable.
“Bob couldn’t stand up in the shower,” says Kelley Gibson, a librarian, homemaker and master’s degree student. Nor could he use the matching toilet.
Beauty is in the details
The Gibsons’ plan for rescuing this bungalow was inspired by the furniture they love-Stickley furniture from the Arts and Crafts school.
Excited about being able to house their collection of original and reissue pieces in a complementary style of home, they decided to do one better: To infuse a strong Arts and Crafts influence into the details of the rehab.
Heinz gave them books to read and accompanied them to the annual National Arts & Crafts Conference in North Carolina. On a detour from a business trip, Bob Gibson even traveled through California’s bungalow belt to get a feel for the Craftsman style.
Although the house underwent significant constructive changes, the real beauty of this rehab is in the details.
From Frank Lloyd Wright: Continuous oak banding that not only traces the ceiling and baseboard but flows between doors and windows; also, a spindle motif on the banister and on spindle screens, which are window-like openings in walls that offer the feeling of semi-transparence between rooms.
From California architects Greene and Greene: Cedar heads (upper horizontal pieces that form the top of doors or window frames) that extend more than 1 foot on either side of the upstairs outside windows.
From the entire Arts and Crafts movement: Stencils. Daughters Carrie, 10, and Kate, 9, are helping with this project.
Keep it in the kitchen
Not everybody is so compelled. Not every project is so big.
Stempel and Patronsky, manager of a research group for the CTA, focused their rehab efforts on the dark kitchen of their Ravenswood Manor bungalow, which was built in the 1920s.
“We wanted it to be brighter, and we wanted it to be more spacious,” says Stempel, a computer consultant (and new mom) who works out of her house.
The couple hired Chicago architect Ellen Bailey Dickson, who delivered a lighter, brighter, more intelligent kitchen of seaspray-green and cherry-red laminate with a flecked tile floor that “hides the crumbs well,” says Stempel.
Size is another key attribute. The back porch was absorbed into the kitchen space, adding approximately 100 square feet.
Because Stempel and Patronsky like to cook and entertain, the centerpiece island counter works well. It keeps guests out of the work area, but still in the kitchen.
Openness prevails: Open shelves between wall-hung cabinets serve as display and storage units. Windows were added, allowing north, east and west exposures.
They spent $50,000 for their new kitchen-and believe it was worth it.
Patronsky says they spend more time in the kitchen now. So does Baby Daniel in his bassinet.
“It’s turned out to be a great place,” Patronsky says.
