BERWYN – Berwyn’s bungalows are one step closer to becoming a national treasure.

The Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council recently unanimously approved the Central Berwyn Bungalow Historic District National Register nomination for addition to the National Register of Historic Places.

“We’re on our way,” Berwyn’s City of Homes Organization member Elizabeth Kurr said.

The nomination now will be submitted by IHSAC to the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places. The keeper is a National Park Service official, responsible for overseeing the eligibility of historic properties for inclusion on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Kurr said she is confident the nomination will stand and the district will be added to the list of the country’s historic places.

“It’s an honor and it’s acknowledgment that this district is significant; it’s important,” Kurr said. “It’s acknowledging what we have here is special.”

The area proposed for the district is bounded by Cermak Road to the north, 26th Street to the south, Ridgeland Avenue to the east and Home Avenue to the west.

A total of 1,360 bungalows out of 1,506 residential structures inventoried would make Berwyn’s proposed district among the largest bungalow districts nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, Kurr said.

“What is significant about our nomination is the scope of the number of contributing properties we have, and just the bungalows themselves,” Kurr said. “There are the Chicago bungalows ... craftsman bungalows and prairie bungalows – there’s so many variations.”

Kurr said the IHSAC really enjoyed reading the nomination because it told a story about how Berwyn developed into both a city and community.

“Because Berwyn was on that westward trajectory of Czech immigrants, it told that story, it conveyed that in the nomination,”Kurr said. “It tells an American story. It’s about ordinary people.”

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