Architectural touches set homes from the 1920s apart

In the Haskins' colonial, it's the rich walnut doors with arched tops that catch your eye, and a few blocks away a multitude of seductive casement windows and French doors lead visitors through the Italian Revival house of Caroline Oswald and Doug Rockar.

If the gracious architecture of 1920s homes appeals to you, you will want to visit these and others on the Elgin Historic House Tour Sept. 11. This year's Gifford Park Association house walk is in the northwest neighborhood just south of Wing Park, and six of the seven homes have never been open before for the event.

For almost five years, Michael and Trudi Haskins have lived in their brick colonial revival style home with gardens winding over two full lots.

The yummy wood grain marks the doors with the curved tops as some version of walnut, but no one has been able to absolutely identify it, said Michael Haskins.

Another feature that he likes is the view across the front of the house from the dining room through the front hall and the living room to the sunroom. One of the delights is a plethora of casement windows at each end.

The home was built in the late 1920s for W.J. and Erna Giertz, and a photo of Giertz, who was a contractor, holds a place of honor on the dramatic living room fireplace. The floor-to-ceiling mantel featuring wood panels, while very attractive, was added sometime after the house was built, said Haskins.

Notice how wide the window sills are. The exterior walls are three bricks thick. That gives the Haskins a $70 monthly gas bill year around for 3,100 square feet.

On the second floor, one bedroom opens to a large balcony over the backyard, two have cedar closets and the master bedroom is so large that visitors immediately assume it was once two rooms. But Haskins said the childless couple that built the home designed it this way.

The kitchen has been updated, but the Haskins believe the white cabinets suit the style of the home, and the breakfast room they use for a serving area when they entertain was added in the late 1930s.

It's obvious that this busy couple spends hours working in the garden. Don't miss the koi pond near a robust holly hedge. But don't bother to ask what they use the metal gazebo for - it's brand new.

The couple, only the third owners of the home, got a serendipitous gift - 20 minutes of moving pictures taken on the property in the 1930s and '40s. They show mostly Erna Giertz's garden that at that time stretched over four city lots, but there are also shots of the home's interiors.

It's an amazing story. A man who came to work on the house's gas meter told Haskins, "You won't believe this, but I just saw this house on movie film last weekend."

"It was a friend of his who had it," Haskins said.

A few blocks away at the Oswald and Rockar house, the first-floor sunroom - topped by a large porch - opens to a brick patio in the front of the house.

The two very elegant planters came from Home Depot, and Oswald brags about her husband's work digging up the patio - which was buried in so much dirt bushes were growing on it - finding stones scattered around the large yard, and figuring out the puzzle pattern to reset the random-shaped pieces.

"We knew it was there because we saw it on the home's original plans," said Rockar.

This 1923 house was designed for his own family by Ralph Abell, an Elgin architect whose father, W.W. Abell, is responsible for many of Elgin's mansions. One of the buildings designed by the younger Abell is the 1908 Nathaniel Moore Banta house in Arlington Heights, which shows prairie school influence and is now part of the Arlington Heights Historical Museum complex.

Caroline Oswald is a fan of 1920s-era homes.

"They are not too fussy like Victorians, but they have nice details," she said. "This particular house has a really nice sense of volume and a great circulation pattern."

Her husband explains that each room has at least two doorways, often three. And Oswald notes that the doorways have doors - often French and sometimes pocket - so almost every room can also be shut off if desired.

Besides the graceful spaces and all those doors and windows, the house shows more fascinating details. The very tall fireplace mantel in the living room is some sort of cast stone, said Rockar. The fruit pattern that appears carved in it is often found painted in other homes, said Oswald, but here it is pristine. Oswald and Rockar, who have owned the home since 2005, installed the marble slab hearth and surround.

Oswald believes Abell purposely used wavy glass that creates great patterns when the sun shines into the living room because more modern materials were available in the 1920s.

The butler's pantry's cove molding is a string of plaster fruit, and on the outside visitors will notice panels of griffins and swags above the windows, a salute to the stucco home's Italian heritage.

The metal railing on the main staircase was Abell's choice, and the treads are maple, the only departure from the oak flooring in the home.

But the architect didn't design the kitchen with metal Geneva cabinets from the 1940s or 50s. They are painted a great teal or blue green.

Upstairs there are four bedrooms, and the couple had to remove several layers of linoleum to reach the white hexagonal tiles on the floor of the bathroom.

Visitors will also see a series of what Oswald and Rockar call the inside porch, the sleeping porch and the outside porch. Rockar did a lot of work restoring the outside porch that a previous owner had kind of enclosed. And of course, the clogged floor drain caused considerable problems down below.

Now the couple can relax on the porch and gaze up and down the street, imagining what was going on and who lived here almost a century ago.

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>If you go</b></p>

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>What:</b> Seven homes open for 29th Annual Historic Elgin House Tour</p>

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>When:</b> 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 11</p>

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>Where:</b> Church of the Brethren, 783 W. Highland, Ave., Elgin</p>

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>Tickets:</b> Available by mail if received by Sept. 9; online and at several stores through Sept. 10 and at the door Sept. 11</p>

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>Price:</b> $15 in advance; $20 day of the event; $10 for seniors and those 12 and under</p>

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>Sponsor:</b> The Gifford Park Association</p>

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>Information:</b> <a href="http://gifford-park-assoc.org" target="new">gifford-park-assoc.org</a> or (847) 695-4022</p>