An 1890s cottage is on the market for second time this year – Crain’s Chicago Business

A Ukrainian Village workers cottage, little changed since 1920 and likely built originally by one of the legendary post-Chicago Fire rebuilders of the city, is on the market for the second time this year.

Priced at $660,000, the one-and-a-half story brick house on Walton Street appears to be a Kerfoot cottage,the classic Chicago houses that William Kerfoots real estate firm built by the dozens in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Kerfoot was the real estate man who advertised in the first edition of the Chicago Tribune published after the October 1871 fire, all gone but wife, children and energy. To some people, he represents the I Will spirit that rebuilt the city in subsequent years.

While its not certain that the Walton Street house, built in 1895, is one of Kerfoots, he is known to have been a prolific builder in the neighborhood between 1886 and 1907.

With its trim brick exterior and steep gabled roof, it has the look and feel of a Kerfoot, said Rich Anselmo, the @properties agent representing the home. Anselmo said hes been part of the sale of at least a dozen Kerfoot cottages, representing either buyer or seller, over the years. This one, Anselmo said, is the closest to original condition Ive seen.

Two successive ownershave failed to follow through on updating the home, which Anselmo said leaves it largely as it was in 1920. The family that owned it from 1920 through 2007 updated only a toilet and some light fixtures in all that time, he said. He knows the toilet is from 1946 because the date is stamped inside the tank.

A buyer who paid $465,000 for the house in 2007 got distracted by another project and didnt get around to updating this one, Anselmo said, and the next buyer, who paid $627,500 in July, hasdecided not to go through with a planned rehab. The secondowner put the house on the market Nov. 30, asking for $660,000.

The house has old-fashioned kitchen and bathroom sinks and no kitchen cabinetry, all of which would demand updating. At the same time, it has desirable vintage features intact: pocket doors and wood window and door frames. The cost of rehab would likely start in the $400,000s, Anselmo said, and could go much higher if it included a family room addition off the back.

The house, seen in the center of the photo at the top of this story, is flanked by a homebuilt in the 2010s to replicate the look of Kerfoot cottages (on the left in the photo) and another original one. They are in a landmark district that prevents demolition.

A fully rehabbed Kerfoot cottage across the street sold for $850,000 in June 2019.

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An 1890s cottage is on the market for second time this year - Crain's Chicago Business