Riverside has named its latest local historical landmark and the first since 2021.
The village board on June 6 unanimously approved designating the single-family home at 169 Barrypoint Rd. as a local landmark, capping off nearly four months during which the home’s application was reviewed by the village’s historical, planning and zoning, and preservation commissions.
Errol Kirsch, proprietor of Errol Jay Kirsch Architects in Oak Park, filed the application on behalf of the home’s owners, Sonia Lin and Matthew Kerkhof. The home is the first house to be designated a local landmark in Riverside since 2021.
According to village documents, Riverside’s commissions determined that the property on Barrypoint, which began as a first-floor neighborhood storefront with a residence upstairs and a barn out back, met four of the village’s six criteria to be considered for local landmark status.
The first criterion, of being a part of the village’s, state’s or nation’s cultural, historical, social or other kind of heritage, is satisfied by the mercantile origin of the two buildings. They represent “an area of development and design of early American architecture,” according to Riverside’s ordinance that marked the property as a landmark.
The second criterion that the property meets is its representation of distinguishing architectural characteristics. The house, which was built in 1897 according to Kirsch’s application to the village, displays an “early American vernacular form building style with Queen Anne details,” the ordinance reads; it also says the homeowners plan to add glass windows above the house’s storefront windows to restore the home’s style.
The third criterion is whether the property is considered an “established and familiar visual feature” in town. Due to the house’s original use as a store in an otherwise residential neighborhood and its location on a major road, the planning and zoning commission found that it satisfied this step.
The fourth and final criterion that the property met to become a local landmark is its architectural identity and its influence on other construction of the time period within Riverside, which it meets due to being “one of the simplest examples of a vernacular form of building” — that is, a building constructed without professional guidance. According to the village’s ordinance, the historic use of the front building to provide shelter and a commercial space and of the back building to store animals, qualifies it for this criterion.
There is a fifth criterion that Riverside’s historical commission found the house might have qualified for, although it ultimately did not, according to village documents. Homes in Riverside can be landmarked if they are associated with an important person or event to the history of the village, the state, or the country.
According to minutes from the commission’s March 18 meeting, Commissioner James Petrzilka found that the home had once belonged to Joseph Proksa. According to a Berwyn Life obituary from 1972, Proksa served as Berwyn’s park superintendent from 1928-1958 and later served as the city’s park supervisor after a stint at the Brookfield Zoological Society. He is also the namesake of Berwyn’s Proksa Park.
“It’s a unique house for sure,” Village President Douglas Pollock said at the meeting. “I love the old pictures of when it was a storefront.”
Correction, June 26, 2024, 4:30 p.m.: An earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of the former Berwyn park supervisor who once owned the home and who is the namesake of a park in Berwyn. His name is Joseph Proksa, and the park is named Proksa Park. We apologize for the error.
