Behind this grand facade is an adaptive reuse construction of thirteen modern three-story luxury townhomes, each unit with attached garage at ground level. The townhomes encompass a private sanctuary landscaped courtyard.  This project is located at 4840 S. Dorchester Ave in the Hyde Park–Kenwood Historic District. Designed by Pappageorge Haymes Partners and revised by Group A Architect, this affluent and quality conversion is competitively priced and offers picturesque landscape views of the city’s skyline to the north, the University of Chicago’s administrative towers to the south, and sunrise views of Lake Michigan to the east. Downtown Chicago is a brief ten minutes away via the marvelous Lake Shore Drive. In walking distance, you will find Lake Michigan, tennis courts, parks, fine dining, and shopping including Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and Marshall.

​

Owning one of these unique extravagance townhomes not only makes your status it also places you in the heart of elite history. The building front, which is in the architectural style of Classical Revival, is the original facade of the 1904 Fifth Church of Christ- a Christian Science Church, designed by Chicago’s landmark architect Solon Spencer Beman. The building was later owned by Shiloh Missionary Baptist. During the Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King Jr., Mahalia Jackson, and others preached at the church.

 

Kenwood’s historic Blackstone library, which was Chicago’s first public library, was designed by Solon S. Beman along with several buildings from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. After about twenty-five years of disuse, the abandoned church building was bought from Shiloh Missionary Baptist in 2003 by Art Smith, Oprah Winfrey’s chef, who planned to convert it into his home, a culinary school and event space, but the plans never panned out.

 

Not only was Kenwood home to President Obama, it was also home to Solon S. Beman and it is now home to the building’s current owner John Liu, a PhD in civil engineering, and a man of religious convictions. Although John Liu is accustom to master planning and large scale real-estate development with 15+ year experiences in China, this church conversion to townhomes is his first Chicago project since moving to Kenwood in 2011. Upon passing this iconic landmark church and seeing it in a state of horrific decay and partial collapse he was moved to save it before time and the forces of nature completely demolished it. His sole desire was “to preserve God’s house” and through his state of the art reconstruction, he anticipates it will remain in solid shape for two hundred years.

​

​