When 403 N. Grove Ave. hit the market in 2023, one of unusual historic details about the home was the connection to Myles Standish, a pilgrim and signer of the Mayflower compact.
The first owner of the home, Albert H. Standish, was a direct descendant of Myles Standish, who arrived in America on the Mayflower. Albert Standish, a Civil War veteran from Michigan, purchased the land on Grove Avenue from John Schmidt in 1885 for $1,160.
We covered the home here: https://www.oakpark.com/2023/04/27/historic-home-with-mayflower-ties-hits-the-market/
The history of the house was one feature that captivated Oak Park residents Bri and Charlie Kellogg when they purchased the home for their family of five.
The house had been on the market for a year when they toured it. Bri says she immediately knew that it was meant to be her house, but she and Charlie realized it would take a lot of work to make the house into the home that she envisioned.
Previous owners had divided the home into multiple apartments, and some of the home’s original features had been removed or covered up. With the help of architect Christina Townsend, contractor Rick Easty of Heartland Construction Group, contractor Kevin Hibbits of McShane- Hibbits, and designer Robin Schwadron, the couple spent the better part of a year turning the house into their dream home.
For the first stage of the project, they turned to Hibbits to help reconfigure the second-floor bedrooms. Charlie says the second floor still had remnants of the old apartment’s kitchen along with a warren of smaller rooms.
“The concept was to make the three bedrooms livable so that we could move in,” he says.
Working with Schwadron, Bri got the closet of her dreams when a secondary room was incorporated into the primary bedroom.
Floral wallpaper, a lavender-toned paint and plenty of shoe storage make the space her refuge. Charlie got a wall of built-in closet space as well.
The house had an abundance of bedrooms but not an abundance of bathrooms. They gutted and renovated the original hall bathroom and added a new bathroom off an area that houses a lounge room for their daughters and a guest room that’s proved perfect for visiting friends and family.
“Anyone who has to be Chicago-adjacent stays here,” Charlie says.
When the bedroom stage of the project was finished, the family moved in and began renovations to the first floor, using what had been a separate apartment on the third floor for their cooking and living. Charlie says, “We had a hot plate and a fridge, and that was it.”
Bri chimes in to correct him, “It was a double hot plate.” Even with a double hot plate, living as a family of five in the third floor was a challenge for the six months the first floor was under construction.
The first-floor makeover, spearheaded by Easty, required a lot of creativity. The entry featured vinyl flooring and a wall that cut off the main staircase — a vestige of the home’s days as a two-flat.
They removed the wall and recreated the lower part of the staircase by mimicking the original Victorian-era handrail on the stairs to the second floor. Marble flooring and the more-visible, stained-glass window on the stairwell gave Bri the big entrance she wanted.
The back of the first-floor was also completely reimagined. A bedroom and full bath became the family’s TV room and a walk-in pantry.
The kitchen was gutted and expanded, encompassing a garden room that had included a spiral staircase to the second floor. The new space features cheerful blue cabinets, a square island, a breakfast area, powder room and a huge closet that serves as the family’s mudroom.
Throughout the kitchen and entry spaces, designer Schwadron chose colorful wallpaper, colors and accents that brighten the Victorian home while highlighting the historic details like high ceilings and pocket doors that drew the family to the home in the first place.
The couple also updated the exterior paint job and added central air conditioning to the home.
One thing the Kellogg’s didn’t touch was the original fireplace which still bears Standish’s initials in the floral tile. Bri notes that the colorful tile surround is one of her favorite details in the house.
