Doomed Naperville house may get reprieve

Neighbors of a century-old house near downtown Naperville are planning to rally Saturday to save the structure from being torn down, despite claims by the new owners that they may have found a buyer willing to rehab the dilapidated Queen Anne.

The morning rally was planned to coincide with an auction of some of the home's interior features, but the new owners said Thursday the auction has been indefinitely postponed.

"Just for the record, we were having that auction in the first place so some of those items could go back out there into the universe, to someone in the community for their home," said Sue Cobb, who bought the house at 432 E. Chicago Ave. last year.

She and her husband, Chris, are now fielding offers for the house, she said.

About 20 neighbors, meanwhile, applied with the city Wednesday to designate the home as a historic landmark in an attempt to save it.

Sue Cobb said she supports the initiative. She said if they sell the home, she'll seek landmark status before the sale is complete.

The landmark application wouldn't save the home's interior from being scavenged, but it does provide a reprieve from any exterior demolition for four months. The application requires a review by the city's Historic Sites Commission, which should hold a public meeting on the matter within 60 days. Then the city council is required to act on the recommendation of the commission within 120 days of the application being submitted, city officials said.

The house is just on the outskirts of the city's historic district. It was built in 1893 by Adolph Hammerschmidt, a prominent DuPage County businessman who operated a number of rock quarries in the region during the late 1800s.

The council ultimately could decide the house is worth saving and add it to the city's roster of landmark structures, which includes two houses. The Truitt House at 48 E. Jefferson Ave. is owned by North Central College and used as offices. The Thomas Clow House at 11236 Book Road is maintained by the Will County Forest Preserve District.

Another house was taken off landmark status a few years ago to make way for a commercial development.

The Cobb's application to the city to tear down the home, which was advertised as needing about $500,000 in rehab work and was purchased for $775,000, was met with swift rebuke by neighbors and the family that sold the house.

Sue Cobb said she feels vilified.

"With rehabbing it came to a point where it got to be too much," Sue Cobb said. "They said $500,000 (in repairs) and we got an estimate where it's closer to $800,000. We were just going to use the land as yard for when we began our family."

Sue Mangers is the sister of Charlene O'Neill, who bought the house in 1961 with her husband, Dan. She helped sell the house for her invalid sister after Dan died.

Mangers said she feels betrayed after selling the house at a lesser price because the buyer promised to rehab it. She was equally upset to learn the woman she sold it to was Cobb's then-fiancee.

Chris Cobb has lived next to the O'Neill's house for years and the two neighbors had feuded over property lines, Mangers said.

"If we had known she was marrying Chris Cobb we would not have sold her the house," Mangers said.

Sue Cobb said they are willing to sell the house back to the previous owners and forgo closing costs.

Mangers hired real estate broker Gene Darfler to handle the sale. Chris Cobb's father, Bernard Cobb Sr., was the buyer's agent. Darfler said it's unethical for Bernard Cobb Sr. to not disclose that his future daughter-in-law was the purchaser.

"Every time the home was shown we brought up that the owners would bend a pretty serious ear if restoration was part of the offer," Darfler said. "The price was reduced because they said they would restore it. They didn't sign a document saying they were going to restore it, but you take people at their word."

Darfler said the family dropped the price from $850,000 to $775,000 because the buyer promised to rehab the house.

Sue Cobb disputes Darfler's account.

"I was never asked point-blank what I was planning to do with the property," she said. "They never said they'd give me a discount and if they wanted someone to rehab the house they should have put that in the contract."

Sue Cobb said she even went to the Naperville Heritage Society in June as they began to make plans to tear down the house.

"We wanted to do the right thing," she said.