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Ernest Hemingway’s home under contract
Ernest Hemingway's boyhood home in Oak Park is for sale, listing at $525,000.
Updated: June 18, 2012 8:17AM
Ernest Hemingway’s boyhood home in Oak Park is under a sales contract.
The home, which hit the market in late February, was listed at $525,000 with Steve Scheuring of Baird & Warner in Oak Park.
No details were available yet on the sale, but the closing date is June 12.
The Clarence and Grace Hemingway home, at 600 N. Kenilworth, is currently owned by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, which purchased the multi-family dwelling with three apartments, from a private owner in 2002.
The foundation had the idea of turning the home back to its original glory and using it for foundation events, readings, educational events and other functions pertaining to its mission. However, the organization found the uses were not attainable, Scheuring said in a February interview.
The home was designed by architect Henry G. Fiddelke, in collaboration with Grace Hall Hemingway, Ernest’s mother. The Hemingway family moved to the house in 1906, and apparently it was in this home that Ernest recovered from his war wounds and the romantic misfortune he later writes about in his semi-autographical novel, “A Farewell to Arms.”
“The building was built originally as a glorious home for entertaining,” said Scheuring. “Ernest’s mother was really the one that took charge in assisting the design of the home. It once had a music room off the north side and she (Grace) held music events in the home while the front two rooms off the entry foyer were his father’s physician offices.”
The house is currently a three-flat, yet the main floor living room is still the original size and is beautiful, Scheuring said.
Scheuring said in February there are two options: keep the place as a three-flat or de-convert it back to a single-family home. Either way, the foundation is looking for a buyer who will appreciate the home’s “historic and literary value” and treat the property accordingly.
