Cartoonist Chris Ware on Jan. 16 sold a vintage, five-bedroom, Shingle-style Arts and Crafts-style home in Oak Park for $635,000.
Ware, who has produced graphic novels as well as his Acme Novelty Library comic book series, also has created cartoons for the Chicago publications Newcity and the Chicago Reader.
In Oak Park, Ware bought the 2,655-square-foot house in 2004 for $473,000 and subsequently restored it. Built in 1906, the three-story house has 1-1/2 bathrooms, interior woodwork that never has been painted, a beamed dining room ceiling, two working pocket doors, built-in cabinetry, living room ceiling fixtures that are a century old, a secondary staircase and a kitchen with an antique Hoosier cabinet, new oak floors, custom pantry cabinetry and a 1940s Chambers stove.
Other vintage features include push-button switches and dimmers and turnbuckle light switches, while the home also has a new roof, new copper gutters, a recently rebuilt chimney, a rebuilt back porch with a second-floor walk-out porch roof deck and a finished third floor with new wood windows and knee-wall closet storage. Outside are a 1.5-story garage with a wired second floor, an enclosed backyard with new red cedar fencing and a small playhouse.
Ware first listed the house in October for $720,000, and found a buyer in November.
The house had a $19,329 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year.
Ware and his wife, Marnie, now live in Riverside, where they paid $1.14 million in 2017 for a vintage six-bedroom, 5,500-square-foot home.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.