House walk shows Glen Ellyn's historic touch

Tracey Kreiling believes there are all kinds of little signs her family was meant to live in the house that Thomas Hoadley built in 1898.

For example, the first time they looked at it, her daughter found a stone near the back door that said, "Tracy's garden." And they have been very happy living there for the year they've owned it.

"There's something about this place that calls out to us and our whole family," she said.

Tracey takes little credit for renovating or decorating the Victorian house, which is pretty much the way the Kreilings found it.

However, she did plant the rosebushes in the stunning gardens, where huge hostas south of the house are not nearly as big as most summers, passers-by tell her.

The Kreilings' house and five others will be open to visitors Saturday for the Fifth Annual Historic House Walk in Glen Ellyn. Homes include Beth and John Jostrand's stately California mission and Mark Smith's tiny catalog house.

The number and size of windows in the Kreiling home are a surprise. This is no dark, cramped Victorian.

It's bright and cheerful with much of the floor plan open and many of the rooms painted yellow or a yellow green.

The kitchen, which was remodeled a few years ago with white cabinets and dark granite countertops, is just fine with Tracey, who cooks twice a day. It is open to the family room and the eating area, which has so many windows the sun-room behind it seems almost redundant, although the Kreilings love it in the summer.

On the second floor, the master bedroom enjoys its spot in the turret, where the tall, paneled ceiling makes an impression.

One of the three Kreiling daughters' rooms is decorated with a pink flamingo theme, and an antique dealer in town gave her the vintage mirror with the rosy bird on it from her own home.

John Kreiling is in the commercial heating and air-conditioning business, and Tracey plans to open an ice cream parlor called Bells & Whistles Snackery in downtown Glen Ellyn.

Their home was the first in the village to have indoor plumbing, and it belonged to the Hoadley family until 1975.

Tracey is obtaining old furniture for the house, including a delicate black Quick-Meal kerosene stove from the 1880s. It stands in the family room, and during football season serves as an end table holding drinks.

Beth and John Jostrand also have a lot of windows in their California mission house, which was built in 1914 by Frederick W. Dibble.

In fact, the charming to-the-floor casements or French windows helped sell Beth on the house. The living room and central entry have windows on both the front and back to provide cross ventilation.

Her husband, John, quickly fell in love with the house.

Standing in the graceful central entry that has a few broad steps at the back, he knew they would buy the house.

The Jostrands purchased the home almost five years ago, and their work is just wrapping up. Their last project is a small addition with a swim-in-place exercise pool behind the home's sun-room.

The porte-cochere where carriages or automobiles would drive up to drop guests is now the family room and the eating area of the kitchen.

In here, the Jostrands removed what had once been an exterior wall between the kitchen and the family room and replaced it with pillars.

"John came home one day and said he had run into a high school friend who had a design business and he could do our kitchen," Beth said. "I thought 'Oh, yeah, an old high school buddy,' but it turned out fine."

The designer was John Ansehl, who has a firm with his name in Chicago.

He decided to hone the granite rather than polish it to make the countertops look less modern, and he even honed the ceramic wall tiles a bit to tone down the gloss.

The white weights on the lights over the cooktop in the island pick up the color of the cabinets.

The two-story coach house is on a separate lot and was used to house grooms or other servants, so it is a legal apartment, Beth said. She planned the charming renovation that included raising the ceiling and using the building as a guesthouse.

The backyard has been redone with landscaping that includes a fire pit and a fountain.

Beth gives cooking lessons and John manages investments with William Blair & Company.

Mark Smith bought a 935-square-foot house south of downtown that Gordon-Van Tine sold as a catalog kit in 1923.

His restoration included tearing off aluminum siding and stripping the oak woodwork in the living and dining rooms, which was an upgrade in the original house.

Smith has replaced the ceiling lighting fixtures with ones similar to those shown in the catalog.

The cabinets in the kitchen are original, and he added a vintage Universal stove and a Coldspot refrigerator, which was made by Sears.

"It feels bigger because the ceilings are so high," Smith said.

The home has two bedrooms with an original ladder for reaching the attic in one. Much of the bathroom is new. The tub is original as are the stamped-plaster walls made to resemble brick.

The home is on a 50-by-142-foot lot, and while Smith bought it as an investment, he has put a lot of work into it. The home has been on the market and not sold, and he is concerned the price is dropping to a point where a developer might buy it as a teardown. It is currently priced at $315,000.

If you go

What: Glen Ellyn's Fifth Annual Historic House Walk and Preservation Seminar.

When: Seminar is 10 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday, and the house walk is 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

Where: The seminar is at Ben Franklin School, 350 Bryant Ave.

Tickets: $25 for members of Citizens for Glen Ellyn Preservation; $35 for nonmembers; $5 for seminar only. Tickets available between 9:30 a.m. and noon Saturday at Ben Franklin School.

Seminar: The Main Street Program from the National Trust for Historic Preservation will be explained.

This is the program the local preservation group supports as a way to revitalize downtown Glen Ellyn.

Information: (630) 545-1587.