BEVERLY — Sandra G. Biedron and Stephen Milton build particle accelerators and advanced lasers. In their spare time, the Beverly couple also rehabs historic homes.
Their latest project is the Blackwelder/Heritage House at 10910 S. Prospect Ave. in Morgan Park. The home built in 1873 is among six dwellings that will be showcased as part of the 2015 Beverly Hills/Morgan Park Home & Garden Tour.
Homes will be available for tours from noon to 5 p.m. May 17. Tickets cost $25 in advance and $30 on the day of the event. The Beverly Area Planning Association is again organizing the neighborhood tour.
The Blackwelder/Heritage House was on the first home tour in 1971, said Kathy Sanders, a member of the Beverly Hills/Morgan Park Home Tour committee.
The Queen Anne Victorian was once the home of Isaac and Gertrude Blackwelder. Isaac Blackwelder was the president of the Village of Morgan Park before it was annexed into the city in 1914. His wife, Gertrude, was the first woman to cast a vote in Cook County.
The home was later owned by the late Jack Simmerling, an artist and owner of the Heritage Gallery in Beverly. Simmerling raised his family of seven children in the house and used the upstairs sunroom as his home studio.
Simmerling died on July 18, 2013. Sandra Biedron and Stephen Milton bought the home as well as several items from the estate in August. They've been steadily rehabbing it ever since while also working at Argonne National Laboratory, Femilab and Colorado State University.
"We are trying to fix it without changing it," Milton said Wednesday.
The couple is familiar with rehabbing historic homes since the complete overhaul of their house at 9634 S. Longwood Drive in Beverly. They moved into the home in 2002 and completed the renovation in 2010 — all according to the standards set by the U.S. Department of Interior.
Their latest rehab project is no small challenge. The house is more 5,000 square feet with six bedrooms and 3½ bathrooms. It hasn't been updated in years.
"Jack was a painter. He wasn't a craftsman," said Milton, adding that he's been steadily replacing electrical components as well as other elements within the house.
And yet the home is sure to be a highlight of the tour, particularly as it offers a rare glimpse into the artist's mind. Simmerling worked primarily in watercolors as well as pen and ink. He mostly painted Chicago homes and other buildings.
Joining the Simmerling house on the tour is a home built in 1917 that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Another home in North Beverly offers rare backyard views of the woods and an equally unique open floor plan. Still another stop on the tour is a home intentionally built to feel like a tree house, a classic Chicago bungalow and with an award-winning garden and the Beverly Unitarian Church.
The church, commonly known as The Castle, is a Beverly landmark. It was originally built as a residence in the late 1880s. Many years ago, church members restored the interior woodwork and other details.
Some 800 people typically attend the home tour, according to organizers. The event was on hiatus last year as the Beverly Area Planning Association briefly considered moving the event to the fall.
"We felt like interest in the home tour was not as vibrant as it was at one time," said Grace Kuikman, assistant director for the planning association. She added that Beverly was one of the first Chicago neighborhoods to host a home tour.
Instead of moving the event, the tour was reimagined for 2015 to offer "experience activities." For example, one home will host local musicians, another will feature a landscape architect offering gardening tips and another will highlight the area's past with insights from a local historian.
The home tour will also no longer offer trolleys. Though, anyone attending the tour still must pick up their admission booklets at the planning association's community room at 11109 S. Longwood Drive in Morgan Park.
"We really weren't getting that many people on the trolleys," Kuikman said.
In lieu of the trolleys, the association has made an effort to have all of the homes on the tour within a bikeable distance. The bike tour is intended to give visitors a different perspective of the Far Southwest Side.
For more information about the home tour, visit the planning association's website or call 773-233-3100.
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