Like the rare flower seeds that bloom after a prairie wildfire, Chicago’s great houses sprang up on the outskirts of the downtown area after the great Chicago fire of 1871. Glorious renaissance palaces of merchant princes and Romanesque strongholds of steel kings dotted the blossoming woodland villages on the edge of the new steel and stone city. Here, high on a hillside, a real-estate baron built a gray-stone medieval home - The Givins Castle.
Robert Givins, while visiting Ireland, had fallen in love with an ancient ivy-covered castle on the banks of the river Dee. The story goes that he built it for his fiancée. Every huge limestone brick had to be quarried and ox-carted from miles away. When it was finally completed, she hated the dark lonely place - they scarcely lived there. So begins the Castle’s saga, slipping from one owner to the next over the next hundred and thirteen years. Ghost stories, like burrs, began to attach themselves as the Castle hiked on through the years. Presently the Irish Castle is in the hands of the Beverly Unitarian Church, and has become a community landmark registered with the Smithsonian Institution as a historical landmark. The ghosts have become local legends.
Castles tend to lend themselves to creative imaginings and the Givens Castle is no exception. Many know the name of Givins and the other families that have called the Castle home, many more in the neighborhood can rattle off the Castle’s ghostly tales - but it is a rare few that remember the caretakers. One caretaker claims to have heard creaking steps and sometimes boisterous voices. The ghost stories, best as Jim can tell, originated with the caretakers - who else would be poking around the Castle’s dungeon trying to find a breaker switch late on a cold stormy night? Jim Bell is the current resident caretaker - the only living occupant of the building. The last caretaker, God rests his soul, dropped dead while waxing the floor, and he was only in his early 30’s! A fact, Jim states, that no one told him until well after he had moved in to the third floor.
The arrangement seems very fair considering the wealthy Chicago neighborhood. For ten hours a week of labor around the Castle, Jim gets the entire top floor apartment with its three towers and flat gravel patio rooftop. That’s over 1,400 square feet of living space, two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom, great hall and towers - plus two rooms of storage. “I believe in leaving a place better than I found it,” states Jim, referring to the new wood flooring and recent painting that he completed. “I researched historic and environmentally friendly paints, and found a place that makes natural pigment paints used by artists and those doing architectural restoration. I liked using the vibrant earth tone pigments - burnt Italian sienna and French ochre - because they actually refract the light as it changes during the day, not deadening it like modern colors do.” Running his hand along the rough wall he adds, “I even put crushed fine glass beads into the mixture, to give more edges for the light to play off.”
Besides his restoration of the third floor, Jim has witnessed the complete overhaul of the roof, tuckpointing of the towers and walls, and the refitting of the numerous antique windows. All these renovations have occurred only in the last year and half since he started working for the church. The last time such massive work took place was in the 1980’s when the church restored the Castle’s interior to its original 19th century splendor. The Castle now boasts original woodwork and stained glass, with period lighting and décor. There were originally fifteen beautifully furnished rooms decorated with Victorian accents. These include castle turrets, art glass, natural oak woodwork, elaborate tapestries, stained glass windows, elegant chandeliers, copper gaslights, and ceramic tiled fireplaces. A winding, carved oak staircase descends into the sanctuary space. One stained glass window, located on the second floor, bears the motto "Dum Spiro Spero," "While I live I hope." Many have fallen in love with its first floor “ballroom” and second floor “banquet hall”. In fact, the Beverly Unitarian Church survives, in part, from the rentals of the building for parties and weddings.
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