About ten minutes after June Saathoff signed the papers on her new house 21 years ago, the broker told her she had just bought the house Walt Disney was born in.
Lots of property owners would welcome, even pay for, the association with something old and venerable. But Saathoff says no one understands her fears: tourists trampling her property, bureaucrats deciding what’s best for it, the fact that if it’s designated a landmark she won’t get to make any changes to the outside of her house without consulting the Landmarks Commission. Her privacy means more to her than anything, she says; the specter of her house as a landmark leaves her frustrated and tired.
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Saathoff first heard from the commission in March of this year, when she received a letter saying her house was being considered for landmark status and the city wanted her consent. She refused, forcing the commission to schedule a public hearing. One was finally held in June. Among the stable of “city” witnesses at the hearing were the corporation counsel, Landmarks Commission staff members, a representative from the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, and Tribune TV critic Rick Kogan. Saathoff came by herself.
A few days later a child came by the house asking if she could see where Mickey Mouse was born. And recently a friend told Saathoff that a local radio station had mentioned the house as the site of a Disney museum.
If Saathoff wanted to make a two-story addition, for example, or add a very modern porch, Pomaranc says that would be a problem, but not an unsolvable one. The rule doesn’t apply to changes like painting the exterior, and it doesn’t keep the owner from selling when and to whom she wants.
“People who buy in that area are not interested in that kind of status,” said another. “I think it might hurt the salability.”
“There’s nothing left from Disney,” says Stella Syzmanski, who, with her mother and father, has lived in the house behind Saathoff’s since 1954. The house is “all her personality” now, she says. “What’s there to show in her house? If there was something to see I could understand it.”
