Chicago Club Allure
Extraordinary Homes: Landmark Edition
Owners: Todd and Pam Wyett, Dixon Avenue in the Chicago Club, Charlevoix
Year built: 1912
Todd Wyett was driving down Dixon Avenue when he noticed the “for sale” sign in the yard. He called his real estate broker and asked him to make haste to the property.
“Then I called Pam, and she said, ‘You did what without me?’” Wyett recalled with a laugh.
Yes, he did. He bought the house.
“Todd ended up putting the offer in, and I asked if we could get out of it if I didn’t like it,” Pam said, laughing about it all (now).
And when she saw it for the first time?
”I was enamored with the home, are you kidding me? I couldn’t wait to start renovating it,” she said.
The home at the end of Dixon Avenue in the tony Chicago Club of Charlevoix has been a city landmark that many have long admired.
Since it was built by the founders of the Chicago Club in 1912, the Dickinsons, it had remained in that family’s ownership until the Wyetts purchased it in fall 2005. The home, named “Upper Depot,” was a getaway for four generations of the Dickinson family, and the last owners were William Jr. and Anne Dickinson; when he passed away, Anne, of Chicago, put it up for sale.
The Wyetts, residents of Bloomfield Hills, took occupancy in 2006, after some extensive renovations that bolstered the existing 6,000-square-foot home without changing the historic character. Glennwood Custom Builders in Petoskey raised the home for excavation around the perimeter and addition of a foundation (to replace the rotting wood tree stumps that were serving as its base); wiring and plumbing were updated; hardwood floors were refinished; and the trim and paint freshened. A new kitchen and upgraded bathrooms brought the nearly century-old home into the modern era.
“They were able to remodel the house and keep it within the time period,” Todd said. “It was very painstakingly done to recreate the period.”
Added Pam: “Every piece of beadboard has been left original, and the doors are all original. The bathtubs are all original.”
The renovators also converted a main-level bedroom into a billiards room and another potential bedroom on the first floor into an office/den. That still leaves four bedrooms on the second level (two rooms were combined for the master suite), plus a sleeping porch — a blast from the past when air conditioning wasn’t an option on hot and sticky summer nights.
“Every single bedroom has a door from one room to another,” Todd noted. “In case there was a fire, you could go from room to room and get the other family members and get out.”
Part of the property’s allure is not only the regal home but also the sprawling yard. At one-and-one-third acres, it’s one of the largest summer family lots in the city, according to Todd. Further, unlike the majority of the 34 other homes in the Chicago Club, the Wyetts own the land; for most of the other homeowners, the earth under their cottages is owned by the Club.
The home has proven to be an ideal location for the Wyetts, who live up North from “sometime in May until sometime in October,” and their children, who are in and out of the house all summer playing at the beach and in the spacious yard. Mom and dad both are able to work, with the convenience of today’s technology, from the cottage, in their respective careers in health care and real estate development.
Well, maybe not all the time.
“We like to sit on the screened-in porch morning, noon and night,” Todd said, “and just watch the world go by.”
Renovation note: Also working on the renovation were architect David Kimble and designer Jill Compton.
HomeLife Magazine » Issues » March and April 2009 » Extraordinary Homes: Chicago Club Allure