Algonquin family is living the dream in their dream home

Dan Clarton immediately called his wife when he saw the “For Sale” sign eight years ago in front of what is known as the Dorr Thomas house in Algonquin.

It was, after all, “the house with the beautiful porch” that Ann Clarton had dreamily admired every time they drove by.

It didn't really take that much discussion, the Clartons said. “If we didn't buy it, it we would have been ‘should have, would have, could have,' for the next however many years,” Dan Clarton said.

So the couple moved with their three daughters, now ages 14, 18 and 20, from their new, spacious home with 4½ bathrooms, central air and an attached car garage in an Algonquin subdivision to the quaint, historic house with 1½ bathrooms and radiator heat built in 1909 on a downtown corner.

Almost immediately, the Clartons felt at home in the house, whose original owner was wealthy mill owner Dorr Thomas.

“It felt like an old sweatshirt,” Ann said.

“It just felt so homey in here,” Dan chimed in.

The home at 3 Washington St. has four bedrooms, a family room, a dining room, a den, and lots of windows on both sides. It features two internal staircases, decorative oak doors and leaded glass windows that create prisms of colored light on the oak floors.

All the bedrooms are fairly small, and the Clartons sleep in their old full-size bed, joking that nothing else would have fit anyway. The large basement and walk-up attic serve as storage — and plenty of it — for all the stuff that doesn't fit in the rest of the house.

At one point, Ann Clarton wanted to remodel the circa-1980s kitchen, but then her husband got sick with cancer — he is now cured, they said — and that became the least of her worries. By now, it doesn't even matter anymore, she added. “I like to say that we haven't missed a meal in eight years,” she said.

The house was designed by an architect, which at the turn of the century was quite rare; it has no working fireplace, because back then radiator heat was considered a luxury, Dan Clarton explained.

Its most striking feature is a stone, wraparound porch that is almost seven feet wide on one side, and a little narrower on the other. The Clartons love sitting on their porch swing while watching clouds and thunderstorms slowly roll in.

The house has acted as a sort of magnet over the years, with people just stopping by and asking to see the house because they are curious about it, they said. “I have never entertained so many strangers in my life,” Ann Clarton said.

The Clartons love the history of the house, whose second owner was the Dvorak family. Son Raymond Dvorak lived there in his teens in the 1910s before he went on to become a nationally-known band leader. He is credited with creating Chief Illiniwek, the former mascot for the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Ann, a U. of I. graduate, said she loves that particular bit of history.

As for the Clarton children, well, they have more or less put up with what they see as their parents' eccentricity, their parents said.

“They have adapted, but they all want central air and a new house for themselves,” Dan Clarton said laughing.