ROGERS PARK — On a tree-covered street in Rogers Park sits a brick cottage and its garden, two parcels that serve as their owners' private oasis and portal through the ages.
Surrounded by a forest of tulips, tall grasses and trees, the 121-year-old two-story home is nearly hidden from view at its full-bloom peak.
It's been owned by Barbara Ryan and Pedro Ortiz since 1992, and though the Glenwood Avenue home isn't for sale, in the future it likely will be.
There's just one catch: Ryan promised its previous owners to never sell the properties to a developer.
The couple originally bought the home for $112,000, but have received offers as high as $500,000 from builders over the years. Today, the combined lots are worth $342,350, according to the Cook County Assessor's Office.
"They can put a six-flat in here, and we're very, very nervous about that because we're getting older, and eventually this is a lot to keep up," Ryan said. "I promised her I would never sell it to developers, but how do you know? Anybody's going to shake your hand and promise, but there's no way to really know."
A street view of the home owned by Ryan and Ortiz [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
Built in 1896, the cottage was part of a row of starter homes, including a matching dwelling next door where the garden now grows, Ryan said.
That house burned down and the home's original owners took over the lot, packaging them together.
Irish couple Patrick and Honora Moore, the third owners, bought the property some time in the early 1900s or 1910s. When Patrick died, Honora was left to tend to the double-wide property.
Her daughter Helen Gibbons, along with her husband and two children, moved in to help until Honora died, too.
When Ryan and Ortiz bought the property from the Gibbons family, they promised they would do what they could to keep it family-owned.
Among its best assets is the 3,075-square-foot garden.
When Ryan first bought the house, the lot was a grassy field, used previously as a mini-football field for neighborhood kids — save for a cluster of stems that sprouted from the middle.
As Ryan dug down, she discovered she hadn't been the only gardener there.
Honora, a farmer, left many of her tools and equipment in the cottage's shed and grew crops in the side lot — a fact buried and forgotten over time.
Today it's bursting with bee colonies and honey, fruit, trees, grasses, flowers and vine-covered archways along a winding footpath.
"It's a whole different world, we call it our own ecosystem," Ortiz said. "I come from a country called Guatemala; I was surrounded by everything: trees, plants, birds. Now we come here and it's like paradise, it's just really fantastic."
Away from the symphony of birds and comfort of the garden, Ryan said it's come to "feel weird" going Downtown.
"It's an oasis," she said.
The couple's private "oasis" is a nearly private 3,000-square-foot garden. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
On the inside the home, the pair also worked hard to undo hideous 1950s renovations, like linoleum flooring, brown and chartreuse floor-to-ceiling paint, and deep orange shag carpeting throughout.
Simultaneously, they diligently modernized, uncovering and restoring some of its historical integrity.
Ryan and Ortiz removed the shag carpeting, which revealed the home's original floors, re-painted, knocked out a kitchen wall, replaced metal cabinets and began decorating with Latino, Asian and Americana motifs.
As they remodeled, they discovered a number of the cottage's original elements, like a single wooden beam that spans and supports the entire home.
The pair also found old gas lines throughout the house now supply electricity, a feature they decided to keep. Other remnants from the Gibbons-era include swaths of wallpaper and splotches of paint as reminders of the house's former state, Ryan said.
Though they know the chances are slim, the two hope to find a way to legally compel future owners to continue their promise to the Gibbons family, including consulting a lawyer to see if a stipulation can be added to their wills.
The property might be desirable for a developer, but the unique property is also a piece of living history and should be preserved, Ryan said.
"You can't just get rid of the past," Ryan said. "You tear something like this down in the heart of Rogers Park, they're never going to have these gardens again."
Photos by Linze Rice. For more, view the slideshow above.
