House cleaning in Winnetka, IL

Winnetka is three small downtowns rather than one, each built around its own stop on the Union Pacific North line: Winnetka, Hubbard Woods and Indian Hill. The tracks run below street level through a depressed cut that locals call the Big Ditch, built between 1937 and 1943 to take the crossings out of the streets. The village is under four square miles, its eastern edge is a wooded bluff cut by ravines, and Crow Island School on Willow Road is a National Historic Landmark.

The housing is the oldest of the towns we cover. Close to half of it went up before 1940, so the ordinary Winnetka house is a prewar one: hardwood floors, plaster walls and ceilings, painted millwork, original double-hung sash and tiled bathrooms whose grout has been in place a long time. The lots are generous village lots rather than acreage, and the houses are large, with four and five bedrooms common. Along Sheridan Road and the streets running down to the lake, ravine and bluff lots hold shade and damp that the rest of the village does not.

A prewar house is a hand-work house. Hardwood is cleaned with the right product and never soaked, painted woodwork and picture rails are dusted by hand rather than wiped, and old glass is treated gently. Plaster holds dust in its texture and does not take a wet wipe the way drywall does. The water is municipal Lake Michigan water, so there is ordinary film on shower glass and chrome and none of the mineral crust a private well leaves; the routine that suits a house in Barrington Hills is the wrong routine here.

Winnetka is priced by bedrooms, bathrooms and the square-footage band, and with houses this size the band is worth answering honestly rather than guessing low. Enter 60093 and your rooms and the price is on the screen before you give us your name, and the request goes in from the same page.