The beautiful Burton Hales Mansion at Chicago and Oak Park Avenues has changed owners several times in the past 30 years, but the current owners say they are here to stay.
The mansion houses The Language & Music School, owned by Maria Emilia Fermi and her son, Brando Crawford.
The school is celebrating its 30th anniversary, the first 24 years in a storefront on Oak Park Avenue and the last six years in the Burton Hales Mansion. During this time, the mansion has been renovated to add a second staircase to meet village code regulations for a school. But apart from that, the owners have honored the building’s magnificent Tudor Revival architecture with Arts and Crafts features, leaving sliding pocket doors, coffered ceilings and richly paneled woodwork intact.
Purchasing the mansion and expanding their programming took a leap of faith, according to Fermi. (She is a relative of famed scientist Enrico Fermi, for whom FermiLab in west suburban Batavia is named.)
She and her son purchased it in 2019, months before the COVID 19 pandemic began. During the pandemic, they pivoted to offer music lessons, world language instruction and academic tutoring online. They continue to offer online learning as an option, in addition to lessons taught on site.
When you enter, the sound of music – piano, violin, guitar and other instruments – flows throughout the building.
On the first floor, the living room, dining room and former billiards room each serve as classroom space. The living room is also set up as a recital hall that can seat about 50 people. The expansive third floor accommodates about nine individual music studios for students to work one on one with their instructors. The school teaches children and adults, including one adult student who first enrolled at the school 30 years ago. Some former music students who have now started their own families have returned to offer their children the same experience, according to Fermi.
Crawford says that wherever his mother goes in the village, she invariably meets up with current and former students, parents and other longtime friends, who are attracted to her warm and engaging personality.
In addition to music lessons, the school teaches languages of the world and provides a “home school in school style program” for students from kindergarten through grade 12. Mensa, the international society for individuals with high IQs, has recommended the program to gifted students, and some Mensa members have enrolled. The academic curriculum began years ago when Emilia hired tutors to work with her own son, while he performed in a production for Broadway in Chicago.
Describing the day school students, Fermi said that all are very talented, but don’t necessarily excel in a traditional, structured classroom environment. Here, each student works with tutors who are warm and engaging and who customize the curriculum according to each student’s needs, allowing each student to excel at their own rate.
A native of Argentina, Fermi attended the renowned Conservatorio de Musica Julian Aguirre and came to Oak Park to learn English. She enrolled in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program at Concordia University, in River Forest, and lived with a local host family in Oak Park.
That first Christmas, she was invited to a holiday party at the home of another Oak Park family. Upon entering the home, she saw a piano and immediately sat down and began to play. Although she felt her English language skills were still weak, her music immediately connected her with the family hosting the party. Not long after, they invited her to give piano lessons to their children. Soon she was teaching music to their children’s friends at the family’s home. The bilingual experience enlivened her spirits and created the spark that led to the school today.
Early on during her stay in Oak Park, Fermi joined the Steckman School of Music (now closed) in Oak Park and became well acquainted with the owner. Although she did return to Argentina for a time, she later returned to Oak Park to stay. She reconnected with. Steckman and informed him she wanted to open a language and music school in Oak Park. He encouraged her to make the transition. She knew many fellow students at the ELS program at Concordia and reached out to them to teach languages of the world at her school. She also brought in many local musicians whom she knew to teach as well.
Both mother and son are passionate about their work and strongly feel that Oak Park, with its rich cultural diversity, is the perfect place for their school to grow.
“I love what I am doing,” said Fermi. “Our vision for the future is about continuing to provide all students a space in which to develop their full potential.”
Learn more about the school at https://www.lmschool.com/.