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Below are some artistic takes meant to serve as inspiration to artists.
The demolition of 716 N Dunton
Location: map Would need to mask the actual address for privacy?
News Articles:
Petition to save the home
The below text is a presentation by a HANA member to stop the demolishion of a historic home.
Begin presentation
HISTORY In the 1870s Arlington Heights, at that time known as Dunton, was small but bustling. It had a burgeoning downtown and a train that went to Chicago. Residents watched the Great Chicago Fire from Asa Dunton’s roof on what is now Arlington Heights Road. And approximately two years later, noted portrait photographer C. H. Hanchett built the house at 716 North Dunton Avenue. Hanchett must have done well for himself – besides having 3 working studios in Illinois, he had this large ornate house built in brick, when everyone else was building wooden farmhouses. It included a closet lined with zinc and designed for a shower – which must have been a luxury since a complete water system didn’t come to town until 1903.
HOME IN 1915 Eventually Mr Hanchett sold the house and moved closer to one of his other studios and the house was sold to Carl and Sarah Behlendorf who purchased it in the late 1880s or early 1890s, leaving their farm in Mt Prospect to move into town. In 1923, 100 years ago in fact, their daughter Martha and her young family moved in with them. In fact, one of their daughters, Iona, was just 3 years old when she moved into her grandparents big house –she lived there until 2018 when she passed away at age 98.
SARAH AND CARL BEHLENDORF FAMILY AND CULTURE The Behlendorf family were known for their generosity. During the great depression they often provided hot meals to the so-called “hobos” who came to their back door. And to help neighbors thru hard times they gave away parcels of their remaining farm land so others could provide for their families. Over the years, they provided a safe and warm home to widowed or otherwise needy women in the separate apartment built into the house.
GRANDMA’s HOUSE They weren’t people who were famous – they didn’t hold office, they weren’t influential business people or industrialists . But they were the kind of people who built this town with their generosity, love of family and service to others in the community. 716 North Dunton for many years was known as a place of great safety, warmth and generosity.
IONA AND THE CAR BUILDINGS TELL THE STORY OF WHO WE ARE Since the 1870s our country has been thru multiple wars including 2 World Wars, the Cold War, 2 global pandemics, the Great Depression – as well as the invention of electricity, the automobile, the telephone, the airplane, the space shuttle, the internet! It has seen 28 Presidents, the turn of 2 centuries and 1 Millenium and Y2K.
716 North Dunton Avenue has survived it all – in some ways its like comfort food – providing a sense of stability and strength to our community in times of turmoil and uncertainty. Perhaps it’s the brick CH Hanchett chose to build with that helps this solid structure ground us. To lose a piece of local culture and history of this magnitude would be like cutting the very heart and soul out of our community. Some people may say “its just an old building”, but those people are wrong. Buildings tell stories – they are testament to those who came before us, what was important to them, and what they’ve passed on to us. They live and breathe and connect us to our past and all that made us what we are today. The fact that we are all here tonight makes it clear that 716 North Dunton reminds us, and even teaches us, that we are a community made up of neighbors who value our past and work together for our future.
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD IS DESIRABLE – NO BEDROOM COMMUNITY There are many lovely bedroom communities in our area but we’ve all chosen to live in this beautiful community with its history and diverse neighborhoods, and our beautiful old homes with the character that can’t be built into new homes… Visitors love our downtown, they love visiting our historical museum and strolling thru the historic neighborhoods that we all cherish. We are in fact a Normal Rockwell painting. But this can’t happen in a community made up entirely of subdivisions and this is why Arlington Heights is such a desirable place to live, work, and shop.
CLOSING The home at 716 North Dunton Avenue, with its firm standing in our collective cultural history, its documented architectural significance and importance to the stability of the neighborhood is an icon and a local landmark. We ask the Design Commission to consider carefully the neighborhood and the community at large. The loss of this home would not just negatively impact the look and feel of our neighborhood, irreparably changing it, but it would also affect the desirability of living here, which would impact our entire community. We ask you to put first the interests of the people who live here, go to school here, pay taxes here and are committed to Arlington Heights. Development is important and especially in other neighborhoods where the development actually contributes to that neighborhood. Not all teardowns are bad and just because a house is old doesn’t mean it necessarily needs to be saved. As I hope you’ve heard tonight, this is not the case here. Development at the expense of our history will permanently and irreversibly harm this neighborhood and this community. Please don’t let Dunton Avenue, the jewel in the historic crown of Arlington Heights, become a subdivision of million dollar cookie cutter new builds. Please help us to ensure that our history, culture and community remains at the heart of who we are in Arlington Heights, and not outside developers, who make permanent changes and drive away as soon as the check clears.
Our collective neighbors ask our Design Commission to use the authority given to you to deny this demolition and save this neighborhood. Because we care about this place where we’ve chosen to live, we care that 716 North Dunton continues to speak to us, continues to share our history and in fact shares our future. For all the people who have written to share their concern, have signed our petition and have forgone an otherwise pleasant evening at home to be here – we ask you to please hear us and deny this demolition request.
End presentation
Aditional context on the HANA organization
HANA mission statement
- to maintain residential integrity
- to support each other to fulfill this
- to promote unity and effort for the behalf of the the residents
- to influence future village plans
- to deseminate information to revitalize community spirit within our neighborhood
- to support other homeowner associations within arlington heights
Birth of HANA
Early Events: A group of residents acted on their deep concern for the community to create a permanent neighborhood association:
Spring 1980 HANA, the Historic Arlington Neighborhood Association, was officially formed.
July4th 1980 The first HANA activity was a march in the Arlington Heights Independence Day parade
November 1980 Thefirst HANAgeneral meeting was held.
Fehruary 1981 HANA’s constitution was ratified at Arlington Heights Memorial Library.
HANA neighboorhood geographic area
The HANA neighborhood is the area bounded by E & W Walnut to the west, E &WArlington Heights”oad to the east, S Elm to the North, andN. Northwest Highway to t h eSouth.
Other artistic considerations
- The balance between the need to modernize with the desire for the neighborhood to keep its charm and existing culture.
- The relationship home owners have with their homes.