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Wheaton council expected to approve plan to save historic mansion

A Wheaton couple could soon become the new owners of a historic mansion once on the brink of demolition on the grounds of the Loretto Convent.

City council members voiced strong support Monday for the couple's plans to relocate the House of Seven Gables to the southern edge of the Loretto campus. The council could sign off on the request as early as Aug. 7, ending the couple's monthslong quest to spare the 1890s-era mansion from the wrecking ball.

"We value history. We value culture," Councilman John Prendiville said. "And I think this is an easy decision for us to move forward with this approval."

Council members and other supporters commended Bob and Katy Goldsborough for fighting to preserve the house they want to restore as their new family home.

"This is the best possible outcome," Councilman Todd Scalzo said.

With city council approval, movers hired by the Goldsboroughs are scheduled to relocate the mansion next month to two subdivision lots the couple are set to buy from Pulte Homes, the developer of the nearly 16-acre Loretto property. The Goldsboroughs have acquired the 10,000-square-foot mansion for $100.

Crews from Wolfe House & Building Movers already have lifted the two-story, brick mansion from its old foundation.

The Goldsboroughs initially applied for a city special-use permit to move the mansion to two lots on the northeast side of the site, where Hawthorne Lane currently dead-ends.

But the couple withdrew that permit application and submitted a new one earlier this month in the face of opposition from neighbors.

The council endorsed the revised plans that call for moving the mansion to a more isolated corner of the property. The closest existing home, within the Marywood subdivision, is roughly 150 feet west of the proposed site of the relocated mansion.

To the north is a Pulte outlot, which "would effectively create some additional distance and breathing room between this house and other neighboring structures to be built," Bob Goldsborough told the council.

Pulte in May purchased the Loretto campus from Catholic nuns who had lived there since 1946. Developers had planned to raze the mansion to make way for a new subdivision called the Loretto Club.

The Goldsboroughs once envisioned the mansion as a public venue and made an offer to the park district to front the moving costs as part of a plan to restore the house as a wedding and banquet facility at nearby Seven Gables Park. But park commissioners decided in late May not to pursue the project, citing financial and accessibility concerns.

Built in 1897, the mansion designed by architect Jarvis Hunt was part of the "Colony," an exclusive neighborhood for members of the Chicago Golf Club, the first 18-hole course in the country. Hunt also designed its clubhouse.

Landmarks Illinois, a nonprofit group, put the House of Seven Gables and other Colony homes on its "Chicagoland Watch List" of threatened properties in 2009. Since then, more than a dozen of the Colony homes have been torn down or slated for demolition.

"We need to prevent the House of Seven Gables from suffering the same fate," said Lisa DiChiera, the group's advocacy director.

She also praised the Goldsboroughs for navigating a "stressful logistical and financing process to move the house."

"We're very impressed at their perseverance," she said. "And many other people would have walked away at this point in time."

Wheaton couple buying historic mansion; next step is to move it

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