<\/p>\n
The Clarke-Ford House in 2025.<\/p>\n
The Clarkes built the house when Chicago was in its infancy; the Fords, its third owners, saved it when nobody else would.<\/p>\n
When the City Council voted to rename the landmark, the city\u2019s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events announced the house would close for a six-month, million-dollar restoration. Nearly three years later, it remains closed and WBEZ\u2019s Reset was not allowed inside.<\/p>\n
Clarke-Ford isn\u2019t the oldest house in Chicago; that\u2019s the Noble-Crippen-Seymour House<\/a> in Norwood Park on the Far Northwest Side. Built in 1833, it\u2019s three years younger than the Clarke-Ford house, but at the time, the area was well outside city limits.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how there came to be a soft rivalry between the two houses \u2014 one is the oldest house in Chicago, while the other is the oldest house built in Chicago.<\/p>\n In 1836, New Yorkers Henry and Caroline Clarke built the house in the temple-like style that was popular back east. They lived on a site bounded by 16th and 17th streets, State Street and Lake Michigan. At the time, the shoreline was close to Michigan Avenue, about three-quarters of a mile from where it is today at Northerly Island.<\/p>\n Henry died in 1849. Caroline sold 17 of the 20 acres before she died in 1860.<\/p>\n The house, which was well south of the Great Chicago Fire\u2019s Burnt District<\/a>, was not at risk from the blaze. Still, that same year, the family sold it to John and Lydia Chrimes, who moved it out of the city. They hauled the structure to a semi-rural setting at what\u2019s now 45th Street and Wabash Avenue. It remained outside the city until 1889, when Chicago annexed Hyde Park Township.<\/p>\n The Chrimes family had the house for seven decades. By the late 1930s, the third generation, sisters Lydia and Laura Walter, couldn\u2019t afford the upkeep. They tried to get city officials to take over their century-old house, already known as the city\u2019s oldest, but got no takers<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A community garden with fresh flowers and produce on the side of the Clarke-Ford house.<\/p>\n In 1941, a young minister in the Church of God in Christ bought the house from the sisters to start his church. Bishop Louis Henry Ford<\/a>, who\u2019d followed the Great Migration from Mississippi, took preservation of the house<\/a> seriously. Early on, he put on a new roof and rebuilt the stairs and the rooftop cupola.<\/p>\n The old Clarke house was now a parsonage with a campus growing around it. In 1969, Ford asked<\/a> a Chicago Tribune reporter, \u201cWho\u2019d believe, up on the north shore and such places, that here, in the heart of the ghetto, grass is growing all around, and flowers. So many people think the black community is supposed to destroy everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Ford had been quoted in newspapers<\/a> as early as 1951, saying he wanted to eventually turn the house into a historical museum<\/a>. He finally got his wish in the \u201970s: The church sold the house to the city for use as the centerpiece of a proposed Prairie Avenue historical collection 32 blocks north. The move took 12 days<\/a> and entailed lifting the 150-ton house over the CTA\u2019s Green Line tracks.<\/p>\n Despite the care and restoration Ford put into the house, his name was \u201crelegated to a plaque in the basement<\/a>,\u201d said Kevin Anthony Ford, his grandson and successor as pastor at St. Paul Church of God in Christ, in 2021.<\/p>\n Even Chicago Tribune articles covering the move in 1977 made no mention of Ford or his congregation.<\/p>\n Kevin Anthony Ford said city officials promised his grandfather that the church\u2019s role in saving the house would be highlighted. The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it were not for a Black church, a Black pastor, my grandfather, Chicago wouldn\u2019t have this house anymore,\u201d Ford said in 2021.<\/p>\n In November 2022, the Chicago City Council voted to acknowledge Bishop Ford\u2019s work with a new name for the house<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dennis Rodkin is the residential real estate reporter for Crain\u2019s Chicago Business and Reset\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s That Building?\u201d contributor. Follow him @Dennis_Rodkin<\/a>.<\/p>\n K\u2019Von Jackson is the freelance photojournalist for Reset\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s That Building?\u201d Follow him @true_chicago<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n