BUYER WANTED: 6500 S. Eberhart by Pioneering Black Architect Roger Margerum Needs a Preservation-Oriented Buyer!

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Modernist home at 6500 S Eberhart Avenue designed in 1959 by the pioneering African-American architect Roger Margerum. Photo Credit: Redfin

After renovation, the modernist home at 6500 S Eberhart Avenue designed in 1959 by the pioneering African-American architect Roger Margerum is back on the market.

Current listing for 6500 S Eberhart Avenue 

The following is from an article by Dennis Rodkin that appeared in Crain’s Chicago Business, in March 2018 prior to the renovation.

“A California man who bought a modernist house in Woodlawn is a fan of its pioneering African-American architect, the late Roger Margerum, and plans to carefully restore it before putting it on the rental market.

“William King paid $117,500 on Feb. 27, 2018 for the the five-bedroom house, built in 1959 on Eberhart Avenue. He told Crain’s that he estimates the rehab, which will update all utility and mechanical systems as well as the home’s kitchen and two baths, will cost about $60,000.

“Margerum, who died in 2016, began his architecture career at prominent Chicago firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill, assigned to the firm’s design of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, under visionary architect Walter Netsch. Margerum designed a small structure for the campus, the enclosure for an incinerator, but for a black man and a recent college graduate, ‘these opportunities were amazing,’ a former colleague told the Chicago Sun-Times when Margerum died. Margerum’s later work in Chicago includes the Austin branch of the Chicago Public Library and Libby Elementary School in Englewood.

“In 1959, Margerum designed a 1,600-square-foot house on Eberhart Avenue for Emmett Ingram, a physician. In a neighborhood of classic Chicago brick and greystone multi-flats and bungalows, the low-slung, emphatically modern house stands out as much as it must have then. On the outside it’s a blond brick box with walls of windows on both ends. Inside, the main feature that warms up the severity of the box is a pair of walnut walls, one straight and one curved. There’s more walnut in the basement, wrapping a family room and bar area.

“‘What Roger Margerum did with brick, glass and some walnut there is beautiful,” King said. “You can see he was influenced by Mies van der Rohe. I can’t wait to get in there and bring it back up.’ He said the renovations will ‘keep as much of it original as possible.’
Rodkin, 3/2/18)

Read the full story and see the photos at Crain’s Chicago Business

Modernist home by noted black architect to get rehab, Dennis Rodkin, Crain’s Chicago Business, 3/2/18

Obituary: Pioneering Architect Roger Margerum Dead at 85, Maureen O’Donnell, Chicago Sun-Times, 8/30/16

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