When Charles Warren Stiger built his home in Oak Park in 1910, he hired noted Chicago School architect N. Max Dunning, who designed a stately brick and stucco colonial home with Tudor influences for the Stiger family.
Dunning was among the founders of the Architectural League of America and served as the group’s president. His Chicago practice designed numerous residential, commercial and civic buildings across the Midwest.
The home at 547 Linden Ave. was featured in House Beautiful Magazine in 1911. Stiger lived in the home until his death in 1942, and he and his wife, Louise, raised two children there. According to public records, Stiger worked in auto parts manufacturing.
The most recent owner, Angie West, says she was drawn to the home by Dunning’s design. “Dunning was more of a commercial architect. The space benefitted from the way he saw things moving,” she said.
As a native of West Texas, West appreciated the way the house flows like a ranch house and says of the home, “It sits outside of Prairie design. It’s not too specific a style. I felt I could bring it into its next chapter.”
The home has stunning original details like art glass windows in the front door and on the stair landing of the main staircase; a marble mantle in the formal living room and floor to ceiling wood paneling in the dining room. West preserved these details while turning her artist’s eye to the exterior of the home.
West is the co-founder of Refractory, a furniture, lighting and objects brand and design studio based in Chicago, and she approached the home with a contemporary touch.
On the exterior, she repaired brick and stucco and painted the entire house in a dark hue, which makes the home stand out in the rich landscape that surrounds it.
Inside, she tackled a large project in removing a superfluous chimney in the rear of the house. She said, “While the chimney created a sort of forced location for a small mudroom and bar, it really truncated the openness of the kitchen and the flow to the back door and terrace. The brick chimney was demoed from above the rooftop down to the basement, so it was a substantial project.”
Getting rid of the chimney allowed her to create a more open kitchen plan. The re-thought room now has a custom shou sugi ban butcher block island at its center as well as a separate pantry and breakfast room and direct access to the terrace which spans the back of the house.
Removing the chimney also impacted the bedrooms above and allowed West to create a better flow on the second floor, which includes five bedrooms, a hall bath and a primary suite with a fireplace.
The third floor includes two more bedrooms, a full bathroom and a large family room.
During the course of the renovations, West refinished the hardwood floors throughout the first and second floor and also put in air conditioning on the upper two floors of the home and had a tankless water heater installed.
The home includes the original three car garage with an attached coach house.
With its stone floors, beadboard walls and ladder to a loft, the coach house speaks to the era in which the home was designed.
West said the space was meant for use by carriage drivers and that the attached garden shed was originally a space for horses to go in inclement weather.
Original wood beams and gate latches remain in the room.
Today, the coach house includes a bonus living space, and West commissioned architectural plans for a coach house renovation that she will make available to the next owner.
While she is moving on to her next chapter, West is hopeful that someone will see the beauty in the house as she does. “I love the way it looks in the fall, in the spring and with the snow. It’s a happy place.”
The home is listed for sale with Aldo Bottalla of CRE Advising for $1,698,000.