Oak Park Club celebrates 100 years

On December 26, 1923, the Oak Park Club opened on the corner of Oak Park Avenue and Ontario Street with a gala social event for its members. The sizeable building was designed by Chicago-based architects Holmes and Flynn.

The building’s largest room could accommodate 750 members of the club at one time. For decades, the building served as a gathering space and social hub for the village. There was a swimming pool in the basement, bowling alleys, a billiards room and two, twenty-foot-high handball courts. The OPC invited notable speakers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Kroc and Bob Newhart to address members. 

In addition, the OPC’s spacious rooms lent themselves to social gatherings. Many Oak Parkers held their wedding receptions in the building. For years, local junior high school students learned ballroom dancing at the OPC. Mrs. Jessie Pocock used castanets to keep her pupils’ attention, and the children wore their best clothes, as well as white gloves.

Architect and former Oak Park resident Bill Dring was one of those dance students, as was his wife Jan. Little did they know that the OPC would be an important part of their lives in Oak Park.

Dring said of the OPC’s history, “The building was an important part of the social fabric of the village. Before people had television sets and before we had country clubs, this was the place to gather.”

Over time though, as families found other ways to entertain themselves, the importance of the OPC began to fade. By the 1980’s, the building was housing offices. Dring, by now an architect with Bauhs and Dring Architects, was walking by the building with his friend Phil Hickman, an Oak Parker and a developer with the Habitat Company, when Hickman raised the idea of converting the building into condominiums.

At first, Dring wasn’t sure if a conversion would be possible. Although his firm had worked on plenty of condo conversions, the OPC gave him pause. “A very important part of any residential project, in fact that first thing I would look at, is where are we going to park the cars,” he said adding, “For family-sized apartments you need at least two if not more spaces per unit. If you can’t do that, just forget the project.”

Being able to construct a garage in the lower level that once housed the pool was a great boon to the project, according to Dring. Although he recalled there were some naysayers, as there were with any development project, Dring said that the project was really one-of-a-kind in Oak Park and filled a need in the village. 

“At the time we built it, it might have been one of the few that offered modern interiors and commodious units and parking in Oak Park,” he said. While the village now has modern high-rises, during the late 1980’s, the only option for people looking to downsize from homes were vintage buildings that didn’t offer the amenities people had gotten used to in their single-family houses.

Beyond parking and community demand for modern condominiums, Dring said, taxes were a big part of the project’s success. An Illinois historic preservation incentive allows owners to freeze their property’s assessment if they protect historic aspects of a structure during a large-scale renovation. 

“The building was in very bad shape when we started this, and taxes had been reduced to a very low level. The buyers were able to save quite a bit of money on taxes,” Dring said. “The project probably would not have happened without that tax break, and the property wouldn’t have been saved.”

Frank Lipo, executive director of The Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest, agreed that the tax incentive is important. 

“That sort of sweetener can help a property owner make the decision to adaptively reuse a building that might otherwise be torn down,” he said. “I sometimes hear the mistaken idea that ‘saving’ an old building is always a huge financial sacrifice or never makes financial sense. In fact, that false idea is sometimes pushed by a developer or owner who has already made a decision to tear down an impressive building because they want an empty lot.”

Dring carved 27 condominiums out of the OPC. Some are one-story, some are two-stories, and others are three-stories. Each is unique. 

“I really think Bill Dring is a genius,” said Ann Gearen, a resident of the building. “It was really rundown when he took this on. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube getting all of the units to fit together. No apartment is like any other.”

Each unit has a fireplace, and each has some outdoor space. Working with the Illinois State Historic Preservation Office, the developer and Dring made sure to retain original details, such as ornate plaster work, wood trim, decorative brick and tile fireplaces, as well as the grand staircase and the lobbies on the first and second floors.

Dring recalled that one unit contains the original auditorium stage, which was incorporated into the design. When construction was complete, Dring and his wife moved into unit 103 and they used a replica of the original OPC logo sign in their new kitchen. The couple lived there for 10 years before moving to Colorado. 

“The building is an extremely friendly place,” he said.

Gearen said that sense of community and friendship remains. Residents gathered recently to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the building, sharing their memories of living in a bit of local history.

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