This weekend’s 43rd annual Historic Elgin House Tour will be a northwest side story, or perhaps a near west side story depending on how you look at it.
“The city refers to this area where the seven featured homes are as the northwest side, but really it is the west end of the Near West Neighborhood,” house tour co-chair Paul Bednar said.
Either way, all of the houses being showcased Saturday and Sunday were built about 1900 and feature a range of styles, including Queen Anne, Shingle, Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, Prairie and Italian Renaissance Revival, Bednar said.
Four of the homes — 43 Hamilton Ave., 229 N. Vincent Place, and 739 and 806 W. Highland Ave. — are new to the tour. The three others were part of the tour 15 to 31 years ago. The houses at 224 N. Commonwealth Ave. and 864 W. Highland Ave. were open for the 1994 tour and the one at 223 N. Worth Ave. was on the 2010 tour.
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Rob and Janis Heidemann bought their home at 739 W. Highland Ave. in late 2022. The couple moved to Elgin from Texas after Rob retired and their daughter and son-in-law moved to Chicago.
“After looking up and down the Fox River Valley, we fell in love with Elgin. We love the diversity, size and the city’s commitment to historic preservation,” Janis Heidemann said
What drew them to the their home is that the inside had been rehabbed with the utmost consideration to preserving its history and original features, she said. Among them are two leaded glass windows, six stained glass windows, original floors, woodwork, doors and trim, original glass windows, and details to the crown molding in the dining room to complement the original trim.
“This home was so beautifully done, we don’t have any major projects. We have spent the last three summers working on the yard and landscaping,” Heidemann said.
Dann and Nancy Farquhar, who moved to 806 W. HIghland Ave. in 1999, had the opposite experience.
“We will never run out of maintenance projects,” Nancy Farquhar said.
The couple rebuilt the home’s four decorative gables. That involved finding someone to create them from the limited photos they had of the originals as well as being prepared for a high cost.
“There is still a fair amount of interior woodwork to refinish, which mostly requires a lot of time and elbow grease on Dann’s part,” Farquhar said.
The couple moved to Elgin when Dann’s ministry, then known as International Teams, relocated to the area.
“We loved the diversity of the town and appreciated the sense of history in its older homes,” Farquhar said.
What drew the couple to their mansion in particular is that it could accommodate their dining room table.
“With a family of 10, that was actually important to us,” she said. “It’s also the only home we found with seven bedrooms. From the moment we stepped onto the parquet entry floor, we loved it. Also, the attic, with its cedar wood, smelled like my grandmother’s attic, which made it feel like home.”
The couple loves the home’s curved windows, refinished hardwood floors, French doors, Juliet balcony, wraparound porch with its starburst ceilings, and stained glass windows.
“We are grateful for its beauty, the space it gives us to share it with others and also its history of being the home and office of Dr. Robert Ollayos’s pediatric medical practice,” Farquhar said.
Ollayos ran a home office out of the Victorian mansion from 1951 to 1981, according to an online obituary published in 2009 when he died at age 92. He was president of the St. Joseph Hospital medical staff in 1953-54 and served terms as president of Sherman Hospital’s medical staff and the Kane County Medical Society, the obituary says.
“The historic tour committee calls our home ‘the Belle of the Ball,’ but we just call it home for ourselves and our many children,” Farquhar said. “We served as foster parents for 20 years, and international students and young adults have shared our home with us too. We pray that God has made it a place of warmth and security for all those who have spent part of their lives with us.”
Elgin HIstoric House Tour hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets purchased in advance are $20 for adults and $15 for seniors 65 and older and children 18 or younger. Tickets purchased on event days are $5 more. The tour starts with registration at Church of the Brethren, 783 W. Highland Ave.
For more information, go to historicelginhousetour.com.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.