Room to grow: Home offers garden with space to make it one's own

CHICAGO (MCT) - Some house-hunters absolutely must have space for a big flat­screen TV. Others, a two-car garage. For me, it's a garden.

When I imagine a dream home, it's really a dream garden: a place with more sun and less shade, with space for herbs and vegetables, where I'd have an absolutely free hand to shape the landscape.

So that's what I asked of Tom Brandt of Keller Williams Realty (tombrandt.com) when I set out to look at homes in the leafy Old Irving Park neighborhood: at least three bedrooms and two bathrooms and space where I could imagine setting down my gardening roots.

So in early November, he showed me three houses, each with its quirks and limitations. One is price: In this cozy neighborhood, with trees, charm and history, homes run from about $300,000 to more than $2 million.

Lots tend to be wider than the Chicago standard, so "you get a little more breathing room," said Brandt, who lives there himself.

One 40-foot-wide lot held a brick turn-of-the-20th century two-story with four bedrooms in "original condition" _ with remnants including paint-gunked but intact woodwork; a staircase framed by a graceful arch; copper gutters; and a bit of original kitchen cabinetry.

But its condition was pretty grim. I guessed it would need a couple of hundred thousand dollars of renovation on top of the $599,000 asking price.

And then I could start on the backyard _ which was full of construction debris from next door. I wouldn't mind building a garden from the subsoil up, and I'm a life­long denizen of vintage housing, but this was too much for me.

A more cheerful option was a $500,000 remodeled 19th century frame house. The first floor had been opened up into a light-filled space with golden oak floors, a gas fireplace and a granite-countered kitchen. With two remodeled floors above, there were four bedrooms, two full and two half-baths and space for an office.

And apart from the semi-finished basement, it was all done _ wired, plumbed, tiled, carpeted, neutrally painted and squeaky clean. I could move in Saturday and head outside Sunday to start tearing up the sod of the 37-foot-wide backyard.

But neither of these captured my gardener's heart. That had been lost to the first home I saw.

It was a 100-year-old cottage with a 1980s addition plopped on top to make it surprisingly large, with five bedrooms and 31/ 2 baths. Living and dining rooms painted in pretty shades of ferny green led me to a sunny eat-in kitchen that looked out to the back garden. A first-floor bedroom and bath would be handy for guests. Upstairs were three more bedrooms.

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Ah, but not the whole basement.

There was enough unfinished space to set up lights and start seeds in February. There was an enclosed but unheated crawl space _ perfect for overwintering tubers and dormant potted plants.

And then there was the 33-foot­wide backyard: raised beds for vegetables; a fabulous fluff of sweet autumn clematis over the chain­link fence (evidence of gardening neighbors); a shade garden sur­rounding a glowing yellow sugar maple to screen the compost bin (signal of good soil stewardship); weeping cherry, smooth hydrangea, roses and perennials in curvy beds; and a rompable bit of lawn.

But there also was room for me to make my mark. The concrete patio was pretty tired, an air conditioner cried out for screening and the garage wall demanded a trellis covered in vines.

But as I looked back at the house, with its neighborly front porch, burgundy-leafed dogwood, bright red burning bush and Japanese anemones, I knew which house I would pick if I were ready to leave my own current garden behind.

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© 2008, Chicago Tribune.