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Elmhurst's Villa Virginia nearing local landmark status

John Cronin spent his childhood in Villa Virginia, a stately Elmhurst house that helped inspire his career.

Originally built in the Queen Anne-style in 1887, the home still retains the hallmarks of Tudor Revival architecture and Craftsman detailing from a renovation in the early 1900s.

"One of the reasons I think I became an architect was growing up in that home," Cronin said.

His devotion to his childhood home explains why he's seeking local landmark status to help protect the future of the structure at 315 W. St. Charles Road.

Dr. Richard Cronin, an orthopedic surgeon who practiced at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital and Loyola University Medical Center, and his wife, Claire, raised their nine children in the home they bought in 1960. John Cronin is the youngest of his siblings, and his brother is DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin.

Their parents lived in Villa Virginia for 57 years until the 89-year-old family patriarch died in March 2016. Last year, John Cronin bought the home from his mother.

He and his wife, a fellow architect, own #9 Design/La Mancha Construction, a Villa Park firm. They're planning to restore the house to its former splendor, maintaining a link to an early chapter in Elmhurst's history.

"We are really interested in investing our time, effort, money and energy toward restoring it," Cronin told the city council's public affairs and safety committee Monday night. "There's some deferred maintenance through the years as you might expect, and it's really a great house. It's probably more house than I need, but it's really a lovely house."

The city council could grant his request and make the home Elmhurst's fifth local landmark during a meeting May 7. The city's historic preservation commission earlier this month unanimously recommended the council approve the designation that would add an additional layer of scrutiny should Cronin or a future owner want to make any major changes to the structure.

If approved, the landmark agreement requires the homeowner to secure a certificate of appropriateness from the historic preservation commission before any significant renovation, addition or repair; any new construction or demolition requiring a permit from the city; a relocation of the building; or any alternation to an exterior architectural feature as defined in the ordinance designating the landmark.

Cronin also told the council committee that obtaining the status is one step in a process through which owners of historic properties can apply to have their property taxes frozen for about a decade.

Historic preservation commissioners determined the home met four of the 15 landmark designation criteria - the minimum required. Among other bench marks, a proposed landmark must be at least 50 years old.

The application for Villa Virginia cites a historic survey commissioned by the city and completed by Ramsey Historic Consultants, Inc.

The firm called the home "one of the most impressive examples of the Tudor Revival style in the survey area." The original owner was Wilbur Hagans, a superintendent for Rand, McNally & Company.

He commissioned its construction at the northeast corner of St. Charles Road and Hagans Avenue, just west of his parent's estate, according to the survey. He named the home in honor of his birthplace in Virginia, and the moniker apparently has stuck 130 years later.

  John Cronin grew up in the 1880s-era home, a two-story structure that still retains the Tudor Style architecture from a renovation in the early 1900s. Daniel White/dwhite@dailyherald.com
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