100-year-old Hinsdale home first to complete renovations as village seeks to incentivize against demolition
As the Village of Hinsdale marked its sesquicentennial anniversary in 2023, the suburb has struggled to maintain its historic charm.
In November 2020 Mimi and Dan Collins became the latest owners of Château du Parc, a 100-year-old property in central Hinsdale; Thursday night the couple, in collaboration with the Hinsdale Historical Society, celebrated the completion of renovations to the house.
“Everything was moved around, updated, it was really needed.” Mimi said. “Boilers were pulled out, radiators pulled out, new kitchen, new baths, new plumbing, new electric new everything.”
While the inside may look and feel like a new home, the Collins refrained from demolishing the original building in keeping with the Historic Overlay District.
The Collins are not new to working on historical buildings, according to Mimi, the Château du Parc is the third historical home she has lived in.
According to the historical society, the house is located at the site of the village’s first tennis courts; in 1899 a Queen Anne style building was erected and later sold to Kathleen Healy Besley, daughter of artist George Peter Alexander Healy, known for his 1868-69 portraits of Abraham Lincoln.
In 1923, the house was burned to rubble along with several of Healy’s works, a year later Besley hired Alfred F. Pashley, a Chicago based architect credited with the designer behind the Cardinal’s residence along Chicago’s Gold Coast. Construction of the French eclectic style home would be completed later that year.
“Once it burned down, [Besley] decided to rebuild the structure with Pyro-Bloc, a hollow core tile rather than the traditional material,” Alexis Braden, historical society trustee and Hinsdale Village Board member, said in an interview with the Doings.
Pyro-Bloc is a scarcely used building material typically reserved for furnaces. Maintaining the original structure during renovation proved to be difficult and costly, according to Mimi.
The cost of renovation eventually overtook the price of the property, according to Mimi. “I did what the house deserved,” she said. “It was a labor of love.”
With the renovations complete, the Château du Parc added to its history as the first project to enroll in and complete with financial incentives from the village’s newly established Historical Overlay District.
Last year, in an attempt to reduce the number of historic homes and structures being demolished in favor of brand-new residencies, Hinsdale established the Historic Overlay District, an incentives program for owners of buildings on the village’s Historically Significant Structures Property List to work with what they’ve got.
The village wanted to provide strong incentives to avoid redevelopment, in particular more flexible zoning regulations, tax rebates and matching grant funds.
Owners of over 80 other buildings in Hinsdale have applied to receive incentives under the overlay district’s program, Braden said.
“[This house] was the first to receive financial incentives, so we’re really proud of it,” Hinsdale Village Planner Bethany Salmon said. The Collins will receive a matching grant from the city of roughly $10,000, Salmon said.
