Richard Schademann performs restoration work on a Berwyn bungalow. (Photo by Matt Schademann)

New group seeks to educate owners of vintage homes

A battle is brewing in the City of Berwyn’s bungalow-rich neighborhoods between preservationists who want to restore the “City of Homes” to its former glory and “flippers” who gut old homes for profit, says the founder of a new not-for-profit organization, Preservation Berwyn and Restoration.

Business-owner Matt Schademann, a commercial photographer, is creating a community of vintage-home lovers who support each other through video tutorials, demonstrations — and dumpster alerts.

Everything developers throw away in gut-rehabs can likely be recycled by neighbors, because so many Berwyn homes were constructed simultaneously during the 1920s, Schademann said.

“You can go into a dumpster and pull something out and it will likely fit your home,” he said.

The organization has a website, a Facebook group with more than 600 members and a YouTube channel where viewers can learn to replace sash ropes, scrape paint, and restore vintage sinks to their former glory. The group has used membership funds to print 1,000 door hangers to create awareness.

Schademann said he fell in love with his Berwyn bungalow and spent the last eight years “reverse-engineering things in my own home until I felt like I began to understand how these homes are constructed,” he said. “These homes were made for the average person to tinker with.”

Berwyn is still working through its foreclosure crisis, with 205 homes currently in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure status, according to Zillow.com. In October, Crain’s reported RealtyTrac data showed Berwyn was among the top 10 in the United States “best ZIP codes for flippers” in the third-quarter of 2015, with 22 flippers selling a dwelling purchased less than a year previously for an average profit of $215,000 each.

But some rehabbers are removing art glass, changing room configurations and adding second-floor “shed” style additions — some covered with vinyl siding — to maximize the resale value of houses. Schademann and others think these quick remodels are destroying the distinctive gabled rooflines of the neighborhood.

“I am a capitalist, but our housing stock is taking a major hit,” Schademann said.

Upgrading distressed property can generate profits, said Realtor Glenn Garlisch.

“Developers have an incentive to break it down by square footage and bedrooms,” Garlisch said. “They’re taking an 800 square-foot home and creating an 1,800 square-foot four-bedroom home with a new kitchen so they can justify asking $300,000 in Berwyn.

“They’re ripping out the ornate pieces and the soul of the home.”

But Berwyn Alderman Cesar Santoy, an architect by trade, doesn’t see developer interest as a bad thing.

Matt Schademann said he fell in love with his Berwyn bungalow and spent the last eight years reverse-engineering things in his own home until he felt like he began to understand how the homes are constructed. (Photo by Matt Schademann)

“The City of Berwyn is in an enviable position, where there’s interest in our housing stock and people moving in, plus we have a fledgling and burgeoning preservation movement,” Santoy said. “Berwyn’s greatest asset is our housing stock.”

There’s room for homeowners who’d prefer a gut-rehab and those who want to live in a vintage environment, he pointed out.

“Houses are renovated to different tastes,” Santoy said. “It depends on personal preference. Everybody likes to have an updated house.

“Developing and preserving, I think the two can go hand in hand and I think there’s everything else in between.”

Recognizing the value of older homes is a matter of education, said Nasri Abi Mansour, who helped found Berwyn’s Community of Homes Organization (CoHo).

“When we started [five years ago], older homes were seen as a liability to the community, a weakness,” Abi Mansour said. “We see Berwyn’s built environment as a strength and an asset we need to celebrate.”

“It is a very fine balance between development, property rights and preservation,” wrote Abi Mansour in a follow-up email. “Each community has to find its own path.”

In September the National Park Service recognized the “Central Berwyn Bungalow Historic District” on the National Register of Historic Places. The district is a rectangle bounded by Cermak Road (north), 26th Street (south), Ridgeland Avenue (east) and Home Avenue (west).

Berwyn Realtor Alicia Ruiz said residents could “tip the economic scale in favor of preservation” by publicizing an Illinois Historical Preservation Agency property tax freeze for owners who want to restore a home in the new bungalow district. She also said the new district will be “the first step” in creating a local historic district.

Berwyn’s 1920s bungalows are among the finest in Chicago, said Oak Park international heritage conservation expert Vince Michael, who served nine years on the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“The bungalow was the middle-class house dream house in the 1920s,” Michael said. “You could clean it yourself, it was energy efficient and it was within the economic reach for people in the 20s who had to put 50 percent down on a house and get a 10-year mortgage.”

Developing distressed housing stock is “always driven by the zoning, how much value can [developers] get off a plot of land,” Michael said. “I would argue the builders are responding to zoning, not the market at all.”

Some of the second-floor additions, which Schademann refers to as “trailers,” seem to be in violation of Berwyn building codes which require a seven-foot setback from the front of the house. The group has brought these to the attention of each other and the city.

Inconsistency is something the city is working on when Berwyn updates zoning codes next year, said Berwyn Assistant City Administrator Evan Summers.

“We are working to maintain the character of the Berwyn neighborhoods,” Summers said. “Our housing codes are long-overdue for an update.”

The city is working on a zoning overhaul with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP).

“I appreciate the work [Preservation Berwyn and Restoration] has done and I think we have a clear understanding of where we want to go [with zoning codes] going forward,” Summers said. “I think if we have active community groups engaged that’s a healthy thing all around.”

Summers said he watches the Preservation Berwyn and Restoration videos, “and I don’t even live in a bungalow.”

For more, check on Zillow

— Preservationists vs. ‘flippers’ in Berwyn —