Lighten up
Second-floor addition lets the sunshine in, provides master suite
One fine morning in the fall of 2000, Susan Lambert was enjoying her usual morning walk when she encountered a detail of police congregating in her Beverly neighborhood.
An officer told her Mayor Daley was coming to announce something about a bungalow program.
“What a happy coincidence,” she thought. Susan and her husband, Leon Slota, were eager to begin renovations on their 1917 bungalow, but their permit application had languished for five months deep in the bowels of the Office of Buildings and Permits in City Hall.
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)
“I think this is a wonderful initiative,” she said, “but I can’t get my permit. Can you help?”
But, of course, the mayor said.
“He took my arm and said ‘Come with me.’ ” Daley introduced Lambert to a staff member who listened intently to her situation.
Her permit was hand-delivered to her front door by 5 p.m. that same day. “I sent [the mayor] a nice thank-you note,” she said.
Theirs was one of the first bungalows to be certified through the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative, and the Slotas received thousands of dollars in energy grants and an appliance voucher.
These days it doesn’t take a mayoral order to expedite your construction permit thanks to services provided by staffers with the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative.
The Slotas like many bungalow lovers had a problem with their bungalow that many are loathe to admit: the interior of their home was at times dark. Blame the wide overhanging eaves and the dark-stained woodwork. They also would sheepishly admit that their bungalow bedroom was a trifle short on space.
But the Slotas had a solution that proved to be inspired.
Neighbor and architect Nancy Eggen drew up plans for adding a light, bright and airy second-floor addition with room for a combined master suite and study, a loft bedroom and two bathrooms.
On the first floor, a new kitchen and new bath, a roomy screened-in back porch, and window boxes for the front capped off the project. Work began that fall and lasted for a full 15 months.
The family lived in their home throughout the demolition and construction, and the memories of that experience linger. “Grace, our cat, still hasn’t recovered,” said Susan.
The addition manages to achieve a good balance between modern sensibilities and a strong appreciation of traditional craftsmanship. They added beautiful built-ins: a maple nook for seating in the kitchen as well as two large oak closets and dressers in the master suite.
From the first floor, the thick wood stair treads appear to float up to the second floor landing, where 13-year-old daughter Eleanor practices the piano.
Tiles of natural-looking stone were installed in the bathrooms and copper sheathing adorns the kitchen backsplash and walls.
Honest materials — maple, oak and copper — are well used in this almost magical update of the Prairie-style bungalow.
The architect clearly enjoys a bit of whimsy. Eggen’s painting of a woman’s profile greets the visitor at the front hall, and paintings of fall leaves skitter along the living room walls and along the curtains at the windows. A cock-eyed half-moon window graces the space over Eleanor’s bed, as if winking.
But it is the enormous, soaring windows, designed by Eggen and custom-built, which lift the house into the extraordinary.
Light soaks the upstairs and spills down the open stairway to the living room.
And though it is large, the white, cement-sided second story was placed well back from the front of the bungalow and doesn’t overwhelm the original red brick home.
Like so many owners of Chicago bungalows, Susan Lambert and Leon Slota have made their house a work of art.