The Clark Netsch House in Old Town would become a Chicago landmark under a recommendation slated for final approval later this month, when aldermen will weigh whether to solidify the building’s status as a symbol of the North Side neighborhood’s architectural flair while paying tribute to one of the city’s most beloved power couples.
The City Council’s zoning committee convened Tuesday and unanimously moved to advance the landmark designation of the home at 1700 N. Hudson Ave. to a full floor vote, slated for the upcoming May meeting. If the measure passes, the contemporary-style building once occupied by the trailblazing politician Dawn Clark Netsch and her architect husband, Walter Netsch, would be protected from demolition and major alterations.
“The Landmarks Commission found that the house reflected the heritage of Old Town as an attractive neighborhood for Chicago creatives in the 20th century,” Department of Planning and Development official Matt Crawford said. “The Commission also found that the house is important for its association to Dawn Clark Netsch. … Her career is distinguished by her good government credentials.”
Crawford continued: “The commission also recommends the house is a significant work of modern architecture. It was designed by architect Walter Netsch as his home and it reveals Netsch’s field theory of architecture and its expression of rotated squares on the design, inside and out.”
More Top Picks Best Welding Helmets Under 300
Clark Netsch made history as the first woman elected to statewide office in Illinois when she won the 1990 comptroller race after a stint in the General Assembly. The socially liberal Democrat broke another glass ceiling four years later by becoming Illinois’ first female gubernatorial candidate to win a major party’s nomination, but she ultimately lost the general election against Republican Jim Edgar.
Clark Netsch died in 2013, leaving behind a storied home where she had resided since it was built in 1974 under the design of her late husband Walter, a noted Brutalist-style architect, art collector and onetime Chicago Park District board president who died in 2008. Her estate sold the house soon after, and its current owner, William Forrest, signed his approval for landmark designation earlier this year.
The house was described by Clark Netsch in a 1979 interview with the Tribune as “designed like a corkscrew. Theoretically you start at the bottom and wind your way up and around from level to level and room to room.” Its spacious interior walls accommodated the couple’s art collection, which included the Roy Lichtenstein painting “Black Flowers,” which Walter Netsch bought for $600 and later sold for $2 million, providing important cash for his wife’s successful 1990 state comptroller campaign.
Before Tuesday’s vote, downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins also shared fond memories of the Old Town house from his earlier days working under Clark Netsch in the ’90s.
“Walter Netsch was just so proud of it,” Hopkins said. “His house was his love and his passion and clearly it qualifies for landmark status in every possible way. But its history in Chicago and its contribution to the politics of our city, through his very accomplished wife Dawn, will live on forever and this is the right thing to do.”