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Schaumburg signs agreement on upkeep of historic Schweikher House

Schaumburg village trustees this week approved a revised agreement with the Schweikher House Preservation Trust and resident Martyl Langsdorf outlining each party's responsibility for the upkeep of Schaumburg's only building on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Schweikher House, at 645 S. Meacham Road, is named after its architect and first resident, the famous architect Robert Paul Schweikher, who completed it in 1938.

Schweikher designed several properties listed as either Chicago Landmarks or on the National Register of Historic Places, including the Third Unitarian Church in Chicago and the Alfred A. Schiller House in Glen Ellyn.

After Schweikher moved to Yale University in 1953, the 4,800-square-foot home was bought by physicist Alexander Langsdorf, whose work contributed to the atomic bomb, and his professional artist wife, Martyl.

When the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago threatened to condemn the house in 1999 for an expansion of the John E. Egan Water Reclamation Plant, the village of Schaumburg bought it.

Under an agreement with the village, the widowed Martyl Langsdorf is allowed to continue living in the house for the rest of her life, but occasional tours are permitted by mutual consent.

The “museum house” is fully owned by the village and will likely have an even larger public role in the future than it does today, Village Manager Ken Fritz said.

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