Park Forest moving to condemn home built by village founder
House is subject of arson investigation after series of fires
As he does almost on a daily basis, Park Forest village manager Tom Mick carves out time during his day to survey the community he has been serving the last 15 years. Each journey takes him on a different path, but more than once each week he drives along Monee Road.
It is there he encounters the village eyesore of eyesores, the burned remnants of whatwas once a sprawling midcentury house on a 43,000-square-foot lot at 33Monee Road.
Thiswas the residence that village founder Philip Klutznick constructed for himself and his large family in 1955. Six bedrooms and 5 1⁄ baths accommo
2 dated Philip and Ethel Klutznick and their five children. Itwas built on a small rise at the southern tip of the village and residents often described it as “the big house on a hill.” To some, it seemed as if it were an inanimate monarch surveying her domain.
The Klutznicks sold the house in 1961, but he once said he had “always felt Park Forest was one ofmy children— it will always be so.”
After four fires in six weeks, this house that once exuded light and life is a black eye on the face of the village; a charred and ashen skeleton. This is what Mick and all who drive past can see. One cannot miss it. The stop sign at the intersection of Ottawa Street and Monee Road is posted directly in front of the ruins.
“It is frustrating to me every time I drive past the house,” Mick said.
After the Klutznicks departed, the house was well-maintained by other owners until itwas sold in 2014. Cook County records list members of the Sammy Parr family as the new owners and they quickly erected security gates at each entrance of the arced driveway, imprisoning the architectural queen of the village.
We have discussed this before and of how, according to the Cook County recorder of deeds, the property was quickly burdened with financial issues including a huge judgment by Cook County Circuit Court Judge Philip Sherlock against the Parrs for failing to pay employees of private security firms the family operated.
On Nov. 19, 2019, firefighters put out a fire on the long west end which housed the bedrooms. On Dec. 23, a second fire gutted the east end of the house which included the garage, kitchen and dining areas. Four days later a fire engulfed whatwas left of the central portion of the house and on Jan. 2 of this year, a fourth fire demolished almost anything whatwas left. Today, nothing is left except the black embers and gray ash, the mournful colors of a shroud.
Once the fires began the Illinois Fire Marshal’s office began an arson investigation.
“We think the investigation is still ongoing because no arrests have been made” a spokesperson for the
Park Forest Fire Department said.
The previous owners have disappeared, and according to Cook County court documents, the house, along with two others in Park Forest owned by the Parr family, were also saddled with debt.
Thiswas echoed by a woman in a response on social media to residents outraged over the fires. She explained shewas part of the household and blamed the fires on “squatters” adding that the house was in foreclosure and “under litigation.”
Along with the house on Monee Road, public documents showed the family’s ownership of two other houses in the village, one of which, owned by Parr Legacy Ltd., suffered fire damage to 40% of the structure more than two years ago.
Attorneys for the village are working their way through the legal system, seeking a condemnation of the building. But when it comes to court proceedings, time seems to tick backward. There is a status hearing on the case set for late December, nearly one year after fires eventually consumed the building. An outcome still seems far in the offing.