New Lenox community rebuilds brothers' home

From the outside, the little white house looked abandoned. Set back from the quiet residential road and surrounded by towering trees, the place was the picture of neglect, with crooked front steps, a broken railing and a door that had been hung upside down and backward.

Inside lived three elderly brothers who, for decades, kept to themselves and rarely saw a visitor. Then, one day last November, a county building inspector pulled up in the gravel driveway. He gently explained that the brothers would have to bring their property up to code or the home could be condemned, and the brothers would be put out.

Their roof leaked, and wind blew through holes in the walls. More than a dozen cats roamed the yard, which was scattered with piles of junk. Still, it was home the only one the brothers had ever known. They could remember how their father, an immigrant from Italy, used to sing and play piano in the front room. One of his favorites was "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'."

Oh, what a beautiful mornin',

Oh, what a beautiful day,

I've got a wonderful feelin',

Everything's going my way.

"Year after year, we'd listen to him practice and sing," said Ray Sabec, 67, the youngest brother. "I am very sentimental. To me, everything is feeling and memory.

"That music is still there in the house."

Indeed, when the brothers looked at their dilapidated home, they could remember how it used to be.

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New Lenox community rebuilds brothers' home