Two men, suburban homeowners, stand on a clipped green lawn. Beads of perspiration form on one man’s brow as his worst nightmare comes into focus.
“Complete tear-off,” he mutters, squinting into the morning light, “This . . . is going to cost me.”
Staring at his neighbor’s buckling roof tiles, the other man replies, “I feel your pain.”
A home repair horror story?
Perhaps, but for owners of vintage homes, this story is just the tip of the iceberg. Members of the Old House Support Group in St. Charles will vouch for that.
“When I bought my house, it had a severe problem with the roof and porch sinking,” said member Lindy Narver, owner since 1990 of a 70-year-old bungalow in Aurora.
To solve her home’s problems, Narver, a transplanted Californian, turned to the Yellow Pages. What she received was a series of wildly fluctuating estimates.
“A lot of people say they work on older homes,” Narver said. “But in the first few minutes you can tell whether they’re sympathetic to your needs. Your first clue is when they shake their head and tell you how expensive the job is going to be.”
But Narver was lucky. In November 1991, she attended the inaugural meeting of the Old House Support Group. Membership is open, free of charge, to all Kane County residents, and attendance averages between 40 and 100.
The support group is sponsored by Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley (formerly Restorations of Kane County), a non-profit preservation organization. Elizabeth Safanda of Geneva is Preservation Partners’ executive director and the support group’s founder.
Every other month, Safanda organizes meetings at area libraries and members’ homes. Structured as an informal round table discussion, the support group encourages participants to share their home-care problems and solutions. Lectures and discussions drift from decaying pergolas and crumbling balusters to period landscaping. Two things, however, remain constant: a collective thirst for knowledge and a willingness to share information.
“We try to balance meetings between guest lectures and visits to members’ homes,” Safanda explained. “It’s a very casual format, based on needs of the group.”
One of the group’s main objectives, according to Safanda, is to bring competent restoration contractors and homeowners together for their discussions.
Such a cooperative mechanism didn’t exist prior to 1991. Safanda found that out the hard way.
In 1980, when she joined Preservation Partners, Safanda became actively involved in one of the organization’s restoration projects: the 1850 William Beith Home in St. Charles.
One of her jobs was to find a competent contractor and the necessary restoration materials. That was no easy task. Surmising that owners of vintage homes were equally frustrated, Safanda decided to pull together a network of resources and services for owners of older homes.
Today that network, the Old House Support Group, continues to provide owners of vintage homes, like Narver, with resources as well as encouragement and guidance. The group compiles a listing of recommended contractors, services and goods in their Fix It Book, which is distributed, free of charge, to residents upon request.
For Narver, this network of information proved invaluable. To date she has had her roof and porch repaired, a chimney rebuilt and a bathroom redone using people she found through the support group. Just as important, Narver has found friends who understand the ups and downs of old home repair.
“Everyone has different interests, of course. Some just want to make their older homes livable. Others want to restore it to its historic roots,” Narver said, “but the important thing is, we’ve all experienced similiar problems. We’ve all been there.”
For Steve Ferrell, owner of Living Landmark Ltd. in Batavia, networking with support group members is good for business. Ferrell, a restoration contractor, is always looking for responsible tradespeople for his business. Thanks to Old House members, he has found them. And he never dismisses members’ advice.
“I have a great deal of respect for them. They can tell me what they’ve tried, what techniques and tools work best for them,” Ferrell said. “They’re a great resource”.
Patrick Bell, chairman of the Advisory Commission for Historic Preservation in Geneva, pointed out the importance to the community of the support group. “Preserving older homes is extremely important, especially in Geneva,” he said. “It’s her identity. It not only strengthens her sense of community but it also strengthens her economically by attracting businesses and toruists to the area.”
For 16 years, Nancy Hollmeier and her husband, Ron, have been restoring their historic limestone home in Geneva. Unlike other support group members, Hollmeier rarely enlists the help of a contractor. But the experiences she and her husband have had over the years are a rich resource she freely shares with members and contractors like Ferrell.
“We have a do-it-yourself philosophy. My husband has put in a whole new heating system, redone the plumbing and rewired the house,” Hollmeier said. “Architecturally, however, we haven’t changed a thing.”
According to Ferrell, some Old House Support Group members extend their knowledge beyond the boundaries of the group and their own property. From Sugar Grove to Elgin, these members work hard to save Kane County’s older homes from demolition. To this end, Ferrell compiles a list of homes in danger. When unsuccessful, they turn their efforts to salvaging. That kind of self-directed involvement sums up the combined mission of Preservation Partners and the Old House Support Group.
“Our focus goes beyond restoration,” Safanda said. “We’re much more of an education and advocacy group dedicated to helping people preserve, restore and recycle old buildings.”
Thanks to Safanda, the Old House Support Group and its members have done just that. And, according to Hollmeier, they’ve managed to ease the pain of repair and restoration of old homes.
“The speakers have been wonderful,” Hollmeier said, “but the best part is the camaraderie. When you tell your home repair story and look around the room, everyone is nodding. They really understand. And that is very comforting.”
