When Shireesh Reddy and his wife Saritha purchased their home on Woodbine Avenue in 2010, there was no question that they were going to need to renovate the small bungalow to accommodate the needs of their family. While plenty of homeowners may feel like they have to move heaven and earth to get a sizeable home renovation project underway in an Oak Park historic district, for the Reddys that was no exaggeration.
The process of planning and getting the required permits for their home's renovation and addition took more than 20 months, and required the services of a house-moving company. Expanding an 800-square foot bungalow into a 3,500-square foot house is quite an undertaking.
The home was built somewhere between 1880 or 1890 and belongs to the Woodbine subdivision, a part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District. Strict historic district guidelines dictated that the exterior of the home be retained, but Shireesh Reddy notes that there was very little of the interior that could be salvaged.
"The house had only three owners before us, and the previous owner had begun gutting the home before he left," says Shireesh. "There were no working bathrooms, and the house was virtually uninhabitable. We had been looking in the area for a while and bought it from a court-ordered sale. Once we inspected it, we found out the house was held up by timbers that had gone through a termite infestation. It was not stable."
Reddy is the owner of local company, Digital Living, which creates smart homes through the design and installation of custom audio-visual home solutions. In his work, he makes homes' sound and video systems ultra-modern, and he plans to do the same to his home on Woodbine.
"I'm taking this home that's in really bad shape and changing the interior, while trying to preserve the historic aspects. Internally, this house will be incredibly modern. You will be able to press a button that says 'goodbye' to turn off all the systems when you leave. Everything will be automated."
In addition to the internal changes, the scope of the project required some unusual lot preparation. In order to pour a foundation adequate to support the house and addition, the original cottage had to temporarily be moved. Moving an historic home is not something that's done frequently in the village, but Reddy had no problem finding a company to do the job.
"To be honest, I googled 'house movers' and found Dillabaugh House and Building Movers based in Crown Point, Indiana," he says. "There's no house moving company based in Oak Park, but these guys moved the Ernest Hemingway home, so I found a company with a local connection."
Reddy credits architect Steve Jaskowiak of West Studio Architecture for developing the initial design of the project. "He did the first rendering and overall design, which included plans for moving the house to pour a new foundation. He got us to point A with the historic commission."
The Reddys had to satisfy the requirements of the Oak Park Historic Preservation Commission and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA), both of which have painstaking requirements for alterations of historic homes. Throughout the process, Shireesh says, the plans changed frequently, and he ended up turning to Oak Park architect Joseph Trojanowski to complete the project.
Working to satisfy two historic bodies created many challenges, including extending the time frame of the project. Shireesh acknowledges that the time-consuming process paid off in the end.
"If I had my way, I would have had a totally different house, and I don't think that would've been for the best," he admits. "We definitely came up with a house that keeps the best of the historic aspects and makes room for the new as well. At the end of the day, both Oak Park and Illinois were willing to work with us, and they had some great ideas."
Trojanowski agrees that the historic review can be daunting. "You imagine a landmark house being something very grandiose, but this is a very small house, not a grand estate home," he says. "We often call it a shack. Lots of the materials didn't match. Our guess was that perhaps this was a workman's cottage built with leftovers from other nearby construction [sites].
"The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency was very concerned that the addition was deferential to the existing house, not enveloping it or destroying its character. While pressing the point that an 800-square foot home is just not how people live today, we ended up with a design for the addition that really takes into account the original house."
Trojanowski kept the roofline lower than most of the houses on the block, limited basement windows and kept the lower level just two steps above grade to keep the addition consistent with the original house.
"Oak Park is mostly concerned with preserving the streetscape view of the home, but because we wanted to get IHPA approval in order to get some tax benefits, we had to also take into account the interior of the house," says the architect. "Some of the interior details were pretty much shot because the home had been essentially abandoned prior to the Reddys buying it. We had to make judgments about what was historical and what was not. We kept what we could of the original woodwork and floors, and replicated what we could."
Temporarily moving the house was unusual but necessary. "This is very rare in Oak Park, but it is the first step in redoing this house," added Trojanowski. "The house is now on temporary supports at the back of the lot while we wait for contractors to pour the first part of the foundation. Once weather permits that process to be complete, they will move the original house onto the new foundation and complete another part of the foundation for the addition."
Today, the original house has been moved and zone variances have been granted that allow the Reddys to increase the percentage of the lot their new house will cover. Although the construction work is just beginning, Shireesh Reddy feels like much of the heavy lifting is over.