Mindful stewards of classic bungalow rehab home
The Chicago Sun-Times, April 22, 2005

BY SALLY DUROS

Beth Martin, 42, and her husband, Ken, 40, have a signature way of doing things. When they were married in 1996, it had to be in Glacier National Park. When they went on vacation last summer, they decided to track whales in Alaska. Their lives together are an expression of a unique joint adventure.

So it figures that the house they bought together in 1997-- a 1927 vintage brick bungalow in Chicago's Rogers Park Manor neighborhood -- would have the remnants of a Prohibition- era speakeasy in the basement.

"Our bungalow has excessive character," Beth Martin said. "You don't need to have a speakeasy in the basement for your bungalow to have character."

Beth, an interior designer and adjunct faculty member at Harrington College, is from Homewood-Flossmoor, and Ken, a software designer, grew up in Seattle. Both busy individuals with a lot of projects under way at any one time, they knew they wanted a bungalow with an attic they could use as office space, and a tall basement to serve as a workshop. The bungalow on Coyle Street fit the ticket perfectly.

"When we saw the basement, we thought this was great," Beth said. "This has the potential to be some great rooms done here.

"We knew there was a bar, and that it was a big bar. There was carpet on the floor," she said. "It was just a multiuse basement. It wasn't evident that we had a speakeasy."

They had initially thought that they would live in the basement while they rehabbed the first floor. But they had to change plans when they confirmed suspected water problems. The air was too thick with mold and mildew to breathe. Once they determined the extent of the seepage problems, they installed interior drainage tile.
The perimeter of the basement was covered with particleboard and chipboard to cover up the water damage. When they pulled up the carpet and the pad, the tack strip pretty much disintegrated.

They also learned that there was no dry wall in their basement. The extra-thick walls are made of Pryobar, a USG product made in the early 1900s that was often used for soundproofing.

Although the Martins cannot technically prove their basement was a speakeasy, ample design elements provide evidence.

First, the basement has fancy yellow, red and teal leaded-glass windows, which upon excavation they learned exactly matches the glass on the 10-foot mahagony bar. They've since discovered that windows at the Southport Lanes bowling alley bear the same design.

"We were excited when we saw the windows and the bar matched," Martin said.

Another clue is the way the bar was built against an interior wall, so visitors in the other rooms would never know it was there, and the drinking ledge that lines the walls. Perhaps most telling is the closet in the back of the basement, formerly covered by particleboard that is full of empty blue and amber glass bottles. Glass experts have dated the bottles to the late 1890s, and they were typical of those used by bootleggers.

"The way the bootleggers worked is they would pick up your empties," Martin said "and bring them back full next trip -- like the milkman," she said.

But the speakeasy basement is just cream to the Martins, who have painstakingly restored their bungalow from top to bottom following guidelines provided by the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association.

And they've added Chicago details of their own -- such as mulching their flowerbeds with cocoa shells purchased at Chicago's Blommer Chocolate Co.

They stripped all of the woodwork -- the trim around the doors, windows and molding -- restoring the luster of the original birch. In the living room, that meant removing 11 layers of paint, including a bottom layer of gold foil.

The windows in the house are all original, and the Martins have repaired the original storms and screens.

When they redid their kitchen, they tried to match the existing cabinets that were original to the house. One had been removed to make room for a modern refrigerator.
The Martins also put on a new, fully insulated roof.

"We did it the way the HCBA likes to see it," Beth said. "We didn't like heating the outdoors."

They still use the house's original heating system. Their original boiler was coal-burning converted to oil to gas, which was running at 15 percent to 50 percent fuel efficiency, so they had it replaced.

The Martins said that with a cross-breeze through open front and back security doors and windows, they don't need air conditioning in the summer.

They also installed a water-conserving dishwasher and washing machine.

With the addition of three skylights to the attic, and new dry wall, new window trim and new baseboards, they had their offices.

Beth loves the beauty and the story of her Historic Chicago Bungalow so much that she is leading a drive to put Rogers Park Manor on the National Register of Historic Places.

"We don't say we own the house," Beth said. "We say we are the present stewards of it."

Sally Duros is a local free-lance writer.