Discover how Woodstock’s historic Old Courthouse was transformed into a modern, energy-efficient community hub while preserving its 19th-century charm.

In Chicago, it’s possible to buy an old, deteriorating building for one dollar, provided you promise to save it from the wrecking ball and spend your money renovating it instead. Not only do you avoid the need to demolish and start from scratch---wasting energy and resources in the process---but you can revive a venerable old structure and make it more sustainable as well. Two LEED-certified cases in point: the Optimo Hat Co. plant and corporate headquarters in a former south

Located just 20 minutes by bicycle from Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated house in Oak Park, Illinois, Euclid Avenue United Methodist Church is the Village’s epicenter of sustainability initiatives. The 22,500-square-foot church was built in 1900 and in 1967 a two-story addition was attached directly to the south to provide space for religious education. After that the building remained the same, more or less, until the early 2010’s, when its leaders bit the green bullet. By 2

The devil is in the details at Chicago’s Hairpin Lofts . Look carefully at the exterior of this majestic, six-story triangular structure, and you’ll see that it’s bedecked with camel insignias. Constructed in 1930, when ladies had pinned-up hairdos, the building originally housed the offices of the Hump Hair Pin company, helmed by Sol Goldberg, the Chicago millionaire and once mayoral candidate who invented the dromedary-shaped hairpin and who commissioned what locals dubbed

In early spring, Historecycle donned a hardhat and steel-toed shoes and returned to Chicago’s Glessner House to witness the crowning touches of the geothermal well drilling on site. Joggers in the adjacent Chicago Women’s Park, where trees were just turning green, were oblivious to another type of greening happening next door. In Glessner House’s courtyard, on the other side of the brick wall that separates the park from the building, four holes were being bored through bedro

Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, has emerged from the plastic cocoon that enveloped this Frank Lloyd Wright national historic landmark for over a year. While under wraps, the building was crawling with activity. Outside, crews repaired the concrete shell, cutting out chunks, filling in holes, and mending cracks. Indoors, plaster walls and ceilings were patched up and repainted to match their original texture and color. Piece by piece, Wright’s trademark art glass and wood

Some said it couldn’t be done, but…behold! In keeping with its mission of historic preservation, the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest [now known as the Oak Park River Forest Museum] is resuscitating the oldest municipal building in Oak Park, Illinois – a firehouse built at the turn of the last century. The firehouse, whose exterior and interior are being rehabbed to closely match their original appearance, operated there from 1898 until 1916. Subsequently, it

One hundred years ago, on a snowy, bone-chilling Chicago day like today, the Glessner family would have been huddled by the fireplace in their parlor, since the house’s original heating set-up did not allow winter temperatures to get much higher than 60°F. Now, in 2016, the parlor is located in the first zone of the Glessner House to be heated geothermally, along with the dining room, kitchen, and other first floor rooms west of the parlor. Around the turn of the new year th

On December 9, Phase I of the geothermal drilling began in the Glessner House courtyard. The 4,700-square-foot grass courtyard is enclosed by three sides of the building plus an ivy-covered brick wall to the south. This is the same courtyard where weddings are held during the summer, the same courtyard that the Glessners once looked out on from their parlor 100 years ago, the courtyard that was paved over in the 1940’s for use as parking when the house became a printing resea

Next month is D-Day for the Glessner House in Chicago – D for Dig. The much-awaited installation of the building’s new geothermal system is about to begin! Engineers from ACE (Architectural Consulting Engineers) are putting the finishing touches on the design for the new system, which will be state-of-the-art in terms of energy efficiency and performance. Although the Glessners’ 1887 house was visionary for its time, its owners could scarcely have foreseen that air condition