When home rehabber Paweł Radzik bought a modest, three-bedroom ranch-style house in south suburban Dolton last year for $66,000, he saw it as a chance to do what he does best: make some upgrades and turn around and sell the property for a profit.
What Radzik did not know at the time of his purchase, however, was the home’s divinely inspired origins.
The house, on East 141st Place in Dolton, was the boyhood home of Robert Prevost — now known to the world as Pope Leo XIV. Prevost’s parents — Louis, a school administrator who died in 1997, and Mildred, a librarian who died in 1990 — had owned and lived in the brick house for decades. Louis Prevost sold the home in 1996 for $58,000.
The future pontiff lived in the house full-time until going off to a Michigan seminary for high school in 1969 and, following that, to college at Villanova University in 1973. His parents continued to live there, making the dwelling something of a home base for the young priest-in-training.
Now, with Prevost voted to become the first-ever pope from the United States, East 141st Place in Dolton has a landmark unlike no other in this country.
Needless to say, the excitement over the home’s prior inhabitant has sparked some interest from buyers. Radzik, who is based in Homer Glen, first listed the house in January for $219,000. He cut his asking price to $205,000 later that month and then to $199,900 in February.
Radzik confirmed to the Tribune that in the wake of the announcement, he immediately received some offers for the house. However, he decided to take the home off the market Thursday, after Leo XIV’s selection and word got out that he and his family had resided there.
What comes next for the house remains to be seen. However, its provenance has given rise to speculation that a buyer might pay a premium to own a home with such a unique prior resident. Whether local officials would permit the conversion of the house to a museum commemorating Leo XIV, for example, also is unclear.
At the moment, Radzik is cautiously evaluating potential opportunities involving the home.
“I got a little lucky, eh?” Radzik said Friday. “I don’t know what I want to do — I gotta play it smart. I have a few options. I gotta see what is the best option for me. I gotta do it smart. I’m not in a rush to sell. I want to take it slow.”
A Catholic himself, Radzik immigrated to the U.S. from Poland in 2006. He said the house “was in pretty bad shape when I bought it.”
“I would say 80% of it is new — new flooring, new cabinets, new plumbing, new electrical, new kitchen,” he said.
Asked if the house contains any remnants from the Prevost family’s ownership, Radzik said: “It’s hard to say. It was (so many) years ago (that they owned it). I would say zero.”
Radzik wasn’t the only one surprised by the pontiff’s family’s onetime ownership of the Dolton house. Guillermina Terrell of Homewood owned the home with her husband from 2018 until 2024, when they sold it to Radzik. While Terrell and her husband never lived in the house — the couple bought it for use by her mother-in-law, who now has passed away — Terrell was stunned to learn of the ranch style-home’s prior inhabitant.
“You’re kidding. Oh my God, that’s amazing,” Terrell said when informed that it was the pope’s boyhood home. “OK, I’m just mind-blown.”
Like Radzik, Terrell also is Catholic, and she noted that she has two priests in her family.
“I can’t wait to tell my grandparents, because they are very devout Catholics,” she said.
Terrell said she saw no markers to indicate such a prominent prior resident.
“I mean, I can’t say for sure that it was unique. It was bigger than it looked from the outside,” she said.
The Terrells bought the home in 2018 from a bank that had foreclosed on it from the family that bought it from the Prevost family. However, Terrell said she now feels “like an inner peace” about having owned a home once inhabited by the 267th pope.
Dolton hopes ties to Pope Leo XIV will burnish town’s image and spur growth
Although church properties are exempt from property taxes, homes of future pontiffs are not necessarily blessed in that way. The Dolton house had a $7,235 property tax bill in the 2023.
Built in 1949, the house has two bathrooms, recessed lighting in the living room, a formal dining room, a center gallery staircase and a kitchen with a breakfast bar, custom white cabinetry, granite countertops, stainless-steel appliances and multi-level lighting. Other features include a full bath with a Jacuzzi tub on the first floor, a second full bathroom upstairs and a finished basement with a laundry room and exterior access. The house has new porches, new siding, new doors and a new garage roof.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.