Passionate neighbors try to stop plans to demolish Burton Place building

By Rick Kogan contact the reporter|Chicago Tribune| Images courtesy of Eric J. Nordstrom

The block of Burton Place between LaSalle and Wells streets is as charming and architecturally distinctive a block as you will find in the city. Go ahead, have a look.

It is also a quiet, even serene stretch of sidewalk. But that calm, tree-shadowed facade hides an increasingly loud debate about its future.

It began in April, when a young real estate developer named Sebastian Barsh, of Castlerock Properties, paid $1.35 million for the 124-year-old brick and stone building at 159 W. Burton.

He met with some of his new neighbors.

"It was important to us to inform him about the history of the building and of the street," says Trish VanderBeke, an architect who lives in one of the condominiums in the 155 W. Burton building just to the east and owns two other apartments there.

The 155 building, built in 1874, is known as the Carl Street Studios (Burton Place was formerly Carl Street). In the 1920s and 1930s, the artist Edgar Miller, at the behest of developer Sol Kogen, a former classmate of his at the School of the Art Institute, transformed a bedraggled former mansion into a collection of artists' studios/living spaces with stained-glass windows, elaborate carved wood doors, sculptures, frescoes and mosaics, as well as a pair of courtyard gardens with fountains and fish ponds. The building itself is a compelling work of art.

Conversations with Barsh were not contentious at first, but it soon became clear that he was determined to raze the building and construct a modern four-story condominium complex.

This was so alarming to a group of residents/owners on the street and plenty of interested others that they started a website to give cyberspace voice to their concerns.

At www.sos-saveourstory.org you will find not only impassioned language but also ample pictorial examples of the beauty and historical and architectural significance of the 159 building and its neighboring structures, at 155 and 161. The block, as part of the West Burton Place Historic District, is on the National Register of Historic Places, but that doesn't include the sort of protections a city landmark designation would. Some people began seeking that landmark designation seven years ago but never went through with the process.

The website tells the story of these three buildings in much greater detail than space here allows. And even more information and photos are available in "Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home," a stunning book by local authors Richard Cahan and Michael Williams.
But, in short, as VanderBeke puts it, "these buildings so perfectly capture the moment in Chicago's history when the conventional Victorian society represented by these houses flowered into the social and artistic awakening of the 1920s and 1930s, which they so uniquely and perfectly embody."

There is also a petition on the website. As of Monday afternoon, more than 1,200 people had signed it, offering such thoughts as, "I'm signing because this unique example of our city's architectural heritage should be preserved, to maintain the scale and charm of the neighborhoods that we hold in high regard. Otherwise we will become Houston or Atlanta."

One sunny day last week, four of those most closely involved with the effort to preserve the 159 building gathered on the sidewalks out front. VanderBeke was there, along with Amy Keller, who also lives in 155 and is the executive vice president/preservation chair of the Chicago Art Deco Society; Zac Bleicher, of the Edgar Miller Legacy, a group dedicated to preserving Miller's work in Chicago; and Alan Artner, the former art critic for and current contributor to the Tribune, who moved into the lovely three-story art moderne building at 161 W. Burton in 1972, buying it two years later.

"There has been nothing torn down on this block since 1940," said Artner, whose building sits flush with 159. It was built in 1879 and artfully remodeled in 1940.
He realizes, better than do most, that a city is an organic thing. Change is inevitable, and for generations lovely old buildings (and, frankly, some not so lovely) have been razed to make way for new structures. Some have been tasteful replacements, and some have been ugly and some have been those so-called McMansions, which pepper in particular such Lincoln Park neighborhood streets as Howe, Orchard and Burling.

But on Burton Place the concerns are not merely aesthetic.

"These neighboring buildings are so fragile," said Bleicher. "With all the vibrations that demolition and construction will cause, windows are going to crack, mosaics will pop off."

Barsh has been moving quickly. He got the tenants out of his building, and there has been some preliminary work, such as digging down to the roots of large trees on the property. Most ominously, a demolition permit was issued last Wednesday, and scaffolding and other take-down items have been moved onto the property.

Some people have expressed interest in purchasing the building from Barsh, who responded by email that "It is my belief that it is best to save any commentary until there is resolution to the situation." What comes next is the Thursday meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. If the commission decides to hear the Burton Street voices, it can make a preliminary recommendation in their favor. That would halt demolition and protect the building for the time being.

Of course, Barsh could change his mind. He could sell the building to a person who might not tear it down. He could decide to keep its front and side facades and fashion some fabulous apartments inside. He could raze it. It is his building and he can do with it what he wants and isn't really obligated to defend his actions.

"The story of these buildings is a long one. This is the latest chapter. And while it holds the threat of ruinous destruction, it remains unfinished and also holds the promise for a happy ending," VanderBeke said. "Mr. Barsh is poised to be either the hero or the villain. I hope that we can persuade him to be the former."

Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune

rkogan@tribpub.com