City has no plan for Raber House after 30 years

The landmarked John Raber House at 5760 S. Lafayette Ave. has sat vacant and weathered for years, with the city saying no viable proposals have been submitted. Stakeholders have floated ideas—like a vineyard and a pastoral park—but the future remains unresolve

On a stretch of Englewood’s Washington Park neighborhood where demolition once chewed up the surrounding streets, the John Raber House still stands—156 years old, landmarked in 1996, and hollowed out by decades of vacancy.

Thirty years later, the 5760 S. Lafayette Ave. property remains weathered and empty. City planning staff have outlined no clear direction for what should happen to the building next, leaving one of the neighborhood’s rare 19th-century country estate survivors in limbo.

In a statement. the city’s planning agency said city planning efforts have explored restoration and adaptive reuse of the Raber House. and the Department of Planning and Development has entertained interest from outside parties. But the agency also said no viable proposals have been submitted to date.

For people who live nearby, the delay doesn’t feel abstract. Washington Park’s recovery is already visible in places—an arts corridor on Garfield Boulevard west of King Drive. about a mile east of the Raber. led by the University of Chicago. Closer to the house. the Sweet Water Foundation runs a community-focused urban agriculture and arts practice on lots right next to the Raber. betting that development can uplift without pushing residents out.

The Raber House could be part of that momentum instead of a reminder of what was lost. The problem, at least for now, is that the city hasn’t moved from exploration to a workable plan.

Architecturally, the Raber is hard to ignore. It’s a substantial-looking 1870 Italianate-styled home, with two-story bay windows flanking the main entrance and topped by a cupola with a hipped roof. When John Raber built it, he surrounded it with six lush acres.

The original property was so large that its entrance stretched a full block to the east on what is now State Street. In the 1874 book “Chicago and its Suburbs. ” author Everett Chamberlin wrote that the Raber had “finely graveled walks and drives bordered with beautiful arbor vitae hedges” and that “Miniature lakes filled with gold-fishes” offered “pleasing features” throughout.

By the 1890s, as Chicago’s industry and workforce expanded, the story changed. The Raber’s grounds were subdivided for new homes and streets, and the house became one more in the neighborhood block. In 1894, it was converted into a six-flat.

As disinvestment in Washington Park accelerated beginning in the 1970s, many older homes and buildings from the 1890s to the 1930s were demolished. When the Raber was landmarked in the 1990s, it was left surrounded by land once more.

Even with its landmark status, the house has drawn competing visions instead of a sustained outcome. Back in 2011, then-Ald. Willie Cochran wanted to turn the house and land into a vineyard. At the same time. city ownership created another pathway: the city owns 29 parcels of land around the house. according to a planning department spokesperson.

Another idea came from outside city government. Openlands. a nonprofit conservation group. acquired four of those parcels on the city’s behalf with a goal of creating “a park around the Raber House” and bringing the site back to the “pastoral original design that it had. ” Openlands Vice President of Policy and Land Conservation Emily Reusswig said.

But that plan went nowhere.

Some land has, however, found active use. Sweet Water owns or is activating at least four lots by the Raber, and its mix of art, education and urban agricultural programming is aimed at revitalizing communities without pushing out residents.

There have also been expectations raised about how any reuse should connect to the present, not just the past. Emmanuel Pratt—identified as the urban designer and a 2019 MacArthur Foundation genius grant fellow—leads the Sweet Water Foundation. He has given the Raber’s role scrutiny on the organization’s website. which describes the house as “a singular reductive and colonial historical narrative that lacks any connection to its present day context. ” while also arguing it has been treated as “the one and only promise of utopian development. ” somehow “capable of resurrecting a neighborhood that has otherwise been deemed undesirable and ill-suited to be amidst its glory.”.

Pratt, despite being the most obvious voice to ask, did not respond to calls made for this column. Neither did a Sweet Water representative.

The Raber’s uncertain future has been paired with a quieter problem: the building is surviving, but only barely. Over the past decade, the city has done some minor work on the Raber to keep it somewhat weathertight so it doesn’t collapse inward.

Still, the house won’t be truly saved until it’s restored and operational.

A city can protect a landmark. But a neighborhood needs more than protection when a building stays empty for years and no viable proposals are submitted to move it into the next chapter. As Washington Park continues to look for practical ways to rebound—and as organizations like Sweet Water work in the lots beside the Raber—the question now is plain: what will the city do with the building it has spent years exploring. but has not yet committed to restoring?.

John Raber House Washington Park Englewood Chicago city planning landmarked house Sweet Water Foundation Openlands Willie Cochran Emmanuel Pratt adaptive reuse