The fate of a historic house in downtown St. Charles, which recently made a state nonprofit’s list of the most endangered historic places in Illinois, will remain uncertain until at least July, after the St. Charles City Council voted Monday to postpone a final vote on whether the building’s owner can tear it down to construct a parking lot.
At Monday’s City Council meeting, St. Charles Mayor Clint Hull said that, since the City Council’s Planning and Development Committee last week recommended approval of the owner’s request to demolish the house, the city learned that the owner, Baker Memorial United Methodist Church, has received an offer to buy the house and keep the church from demolishing it. The church also received an offer to move the house off the property, Hull said at the meeting.
The house at 217 Cedar Ave., also referred to as the Judge William D. Barry House for its original owner, dates back to the 1840s, according to a history of the house written by former board president of the St. Charles History Museum Steve Gibson, who has been researching Barry and the house since 2017.
Since the property is located within the city’s Historic District, exterior changes to the building have to be reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission and receive a certificate of appropriateness from the city before the demolition project can begin, which is why the church’s plans have not been able to move forward without city approval.
The Judge Barry House’s fate came to the City Council’s Planning and Development Committee last week after it postponed making a recommendation at a meeting last December. In a split vote last week, the committee recommended the City Council approve the request for demolition, despite the city’s Historic Preservation Commission recommending the council deny the church’s request to demolish the house.
The city’s preservation commission made a similar recommendation in 2017, though at that time the church withdrew its request before the City Council voted on it, according to past reporting.
The recent green light from the Planning and Development Committee brought the issue to the full City Council on Monday for final approval.
At Monday’s meeting, Hull noted that the church has expressed concern about parking access and has asked the city for alternative solutions, like changing the parallel parking spots on Third Avenue to diagonal spots to make room for additional spaces.
“The bottom line is that there is still a lot of work to be done,” Hull said at the meeting, noting that the church, city and residents in favor of preserving the house have been engaged in conversations about the house’s future. “Everybody has worked extremely hard to try to work together to try to find a way to preserve the Barry House while also addressing the church’s needs that have been outlined.”
On Monday, the City Council unanimously passed a motion to postpone deciding whether to grant the church approval to demolish the house until the City Council meeting on July 21, in order to give the interested parties more time to discuss their options.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
