Snickers, Mars inventor's River Forest home to be torn down?
A developer wants to demolish a River Forest mansion where the inventor of the Mars and Snickers candy bars lived in the 1920s and '30s, according to a town official.
A venture associated with Bayit Builders applied for a demolition permit June 23, said Cliff Radatz, whose title is building official. Bayit Builders is affiliated with Avra Properties, which paid $2 million for the property in December, according to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds.
Steve Beck, an architect and Bayit executive who Radatz said is listed on the demolition forms, did not respond to a request for comment.
The demolition application is to be discussed today at a meeting of the town's historic preservation commission, which lists the house on an inventory of historic structures. The commission's vote on the proposal is non-binding, Radatz said, and a vote against it only imposes a 45-day hold on demolition. After that period, the property owner can tear it down regardless of the commission's decision, Radatz said.
The lot is four fifths of an acre, or 195 by 184 feet. In May the River Forest village board approved Avra's application to divide the site into two, creating a buildable lot on the already-empty portion of the land. The demolition proposal would clear the remaining portion of the land for construction of a new home as well, Radatz said. He said he did not know what size house would be allowed on the Mars mansion site.
Completed in 1919, the broad mansion was the largest individual home designed by Harry Franklin Robinson, who had worked for both Frank Lloyd Wright and Walter Burley Griffin before launching his own architectural practice. The interior has original details including a "grand mahogany Art Deco staircase, intricate plaster crown moldings" and a conservatory, according to the listing from last year's sale.
The seller, not identified in public records, had owned the home since at least 1987, according to the Recorder, and was selling the property in as-is condition, according to the listing.
In the late 1920s, Frank and Ethel Mars bought the home, having moved the family candy firm from Minneapolis to Chicago.
The Mars family sold it in 1946, the year after Ethel's death, according to the Wednesday Journal in Oak Park.