'Painted ladies' featured on 35th annual Historic Elgin House Tour
John and Sara Boline's east side home came with so impressive a pedigree that when the Gifford Park Association held its first Historic Elgin House Tour in 1982, that house was one of the homes featured.
But when the Bolines bought the house in 2012, it had been nearly ruined by floodwaters and vandalism. The fact that the 150-year-old house is on the tour again this year testifies to the amount of elbow grease and money that the couple and a city grant program have put into rehabbing it.
Helped by some 200 volunteers, the Gifford Park Association will hold this 35th annual house walk Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 10-11. And like the first one, it will focus on homes in Elgin's oldest neighborhood, the Elgin Historic District, bounded by Center Street and Dundee Avenue on the south, Park Street on the north, Liberty Street and Channing streets on the east, and Villa and DuPage streets on the south.
"After 35 years there are still some of the same people involved in the planning process," House Tour Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Fukala said.
She said the first 34 tours attracted 50,000 attendees - roughly 1,500 per year. They have featured 220 private homes and 33 public buildings.
To mark the anniversary, Fukala said, graphic designer Trish LaFleur designed an elaborate foldout brochure called "Progress Through Preservation." It includes a map of the historic district, showing each home and building that has been featured in past house tours; a lengthy account of the GPA's work; and "before" and "after" photos of several rehabbed homes.
The tour volunteers also created yard signs that have been set up outside all 80 homes and 10 public buildings in the district that are either on the tour this year or have been in the past.
Fukala said 5,000 copies of the brochure have been printed. Each tourgoer will receive one. Others were mailed to every home in the historic district and were distributed to neighborhood schools.
"A lot of kids who live in the neighborhood don't have any idea that this is where Elgin started," Fukala said.
The home where the Bolines now live - 162 College St., the one featured in the house tours of both 1982 and 2016 - is right across the street from the city's most famous building, the Elgin Academy's and Elgin History Museum's "Old Main." The house was built sometime between 1861 and 1867 for a tailor named Patrick Jones.
From 1936 until 1999 the home was owned by nearby Elgin Academy and housed the school's headmaster. The academy apparently took such good care of it that it was one of the homes chosen for that first house tour in 1982.
But Boline said things went drastically downhill after one owner had his ownership foreclosed by a bank about five years ago. John, a 35-year-old land surveyor, and Sara, a 34-year-old Kane County Health Service employee, bought it from the bank.
"Water had overflowed in the bathroom above us," John Boline said as he sat at the dining-room table. "The ceiling caved in here and the floor looked like a big ocean wave. The living room flooded, too. And a week before our closing we found out someone had broken in and stolen all the copper piping."
"My parents told me we're crazy to buy this. My wife thought we were crazy. But I had a vision."
In the intervening years, Boline said, the family has spent $14,000 to fix the water damage; $20,000 to rehab a distinctive porch; $10,000 on miscellaneous repairs; and $14,000 to paint the exterior in "painted lady" form with yellow siding, green trim and orange accents. About half that cost was covered by a 50/50 city rehabilitation grant.
But as hammering and sawing could be heard from a carpenter on the second floor, Boline said visitors on the tour should realize that "this is still a work in progress."
Another home on this year's tour is also across from Old Main, at 359 Park St. An 1887 Queen Anne owned by Tom and Maureen Lee, its multicolored repainting won the Chicago Paint and Coatings Association's grand prize this year in a contest of "painted lady" homes from all over the Chicago area.
"And it's just as nice on the inside as on the outside," Fukala said. "It's the culmination of more than 20 years of restoration efforts. A new kitchen, bath and other features make this a perfect example of modern comfort and convenience in a traditional setting."
Proceeds from the tour will be used for the GPA's various programs to preserve and rehabilitate homes in the older sections of Elgin and other charitable programs such as a ROPE Officer Camp for Children and the Community Crisis Center.
"Progress Through Preservation" says that in the 1880s "a distinctive characteristic" of the historic district was that "middle- and upper-class residents lived side by side with factory workers and their families."
But by the 1970s, the brochure says, numerous homes there had been cut up into apartments, many with absentee landlords; middle-class people were taking the equity from their homes and moving to newer housing away from the city's core; and the neighborhood showed signs of "deferred maintenance, insensitive remodeling, litter and vandalism."
"The neighborhood's history and character had vanished as crime rates soared," Fukala said. "Faced with these challenges, the Gifford Park Association worked tirelessly to change the values of the entire community, and today their legacy is evident."
Besides encouraging homeowners to buy older properties and rehab them, the association has even bought, rehabbed and resold seven "problem properties" on its own.
Tax money from the Grand Victoria Casino has been used to fund 160 matching-fund home rehabilitation grants like those used by the Bolines and to fund the "deconversion" of 38 historic district apartment buildings back into single-family homes.
"These tours draw people from all over the Chicago area," Fukala said. "We have gotten letters from people who said they fell in love with Elgin because of the tour and decided to move here because 'we have to have one of those homes.'"
For details, visit gpaelgin.org.
If you go
What: 35th annual Historic Elgin House Tour, with interior tours of each home guided and interpreted by volunteer docents
When: Saturday, Sept. 10, (registration from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., tour from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.); Sunday, Sept. 11, (registration from noon to 3 p.m., tour from 12:30 to 4 p.m.)
Where: Participants should register before beginning Saturday and Sunday at the Elgin History Museum, 360 Park St., Elgin. They then can walk or drive to seven homes at various locations in the Elgin Historic District.
Tickets: $15 for adults in advance, $20 for adults on tour day, $10 for children younger than 12 or seniors 65 and older. Advance tickets are on sale at Al's Cafe and Creamery, 43 DuPage Court; Ziegler's Ace Hardware, 215 N. Spring St. and 1158 Lillian St.; and Jewel-Osco, 1660 Larkin Ave. and 1040 Summit St. Tour-day tickets on sale at the history museum.
Details: <a href="http://gpaelgin.org">gpaelgin.org</a>