Masonry & Tuckpointing in Riverside, Illinois
Most towns leave you guessing whether repointing counts as regulated work. Riverside's code settles it — it names tuck pointing outright.
The code names our trade by name
Across this whole network we keep running into the same ambiguity: an ordinance says “alterations” or “repair” and nobody can tell you whether repointing counts. In Hinsdale we had to say plainly that we could not establish it.
Riverside settles it.
The village's own guidance requires a Certificate of Appropriateness approved by the Preservation Commission for any work on the exterior of the home that requires a building permit — and it lists the work explicitly: roof repair or replacement, tuck pointing, window repair or replacement, or additions. Painting and interior work do not require approval.
That is our exact service, named in the village's own words. It is the clearest regulatory statement about tuckpointing anywhere in the towns we cover.
But it probably does not apply to you
Here is the part that matters just as much, and that a contractor looking to sound necessary would happily leave out.
The Certificate of Appropriateness requirement attaches to properties individually designated as local historic landmarks, listed in Municipal Code Appendix D. It does not attach to living in the National Historic Landmark district.
And in Riverside, essentially the entire village is in that district. So “I live in a National Historic Landmark” and “I need approval to repoint” are two completely different statements, and most owners are in the first category and not the second.
A secondary source puts the local landmark list at 80-plus properties. We could not verify that count independently, so treat it as indicative. What we can tell you is the right action: check your specific address against Appendix D, or ask the Village Planner, before you schedule anything. It is a yes-or-no question with a documented answer.
Olmsted laid it out, but he did not write your building code
Riverside was commissioned in 1869 by investor Emery E. Childs and planned by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, fresh from Central Park, across roughly 1,600 acres of farmland. It is widely called the first planned suburb in the United States.
What they drew is still what you drive through: curvilinear streets following the land contours and the winding Des Plaines River, a commons and park system, gas streetlights, deliberate setbacks.
The district was listed on the National Register on September 15, 1969, reference 69000055, and designated a National Historic Landmark on August 29, 1970.
In December 2023 the Secretary of the Interior approved a boundary amendment adding about 46 acres west of 1st Avenue — land excluded in 1970 because of the highway — bringing the district to roughly 1,176 acres and covering the whole village for the first time in fifty-three years. That is reported by the Olmsted Network; we did not retrieve the federal notice itself, so we flag it as reported rather than confirmed.
Worth being clear about what the Olmsted plan is and is not. It is a landscape and street-layout plan. It does not regulate building materials or dictate what your walls may be made of. The thing that actually constrains exterior work here is the landmark ordinance, not the 1869 drawing.
Two famous houses that will mislead you
Riverside markets three architect houses harder than anything else in the village, and none of them is a masonry reference.
- Avery Coonley House (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1908–1912) — stucco, tan walls with ceramic tile banding.
- F.F. Tomek House (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1905–1906, National Historic Landmark since 1999) — stucco.
- Henry Babson House (Louis Sullivan and George Grant Elmslie, 1907–1909) — demolished in 1960. Its ornament was salvaged. It does not exist.
So a contractor who opens with “we work on Wright houses in Riverside” is citing stucco buildings on a masonry job. It is a fair test of whether somebody knows the village or has read a tourism page.
The two that genuinely are masonry
Both are still standing and both are properly documented.
The Riverside Water Tower (1869, rebuilt 1913) by William Le Baron Jenney is red and cream brick on a limestone base, with Milwaukee cream-brick pilasters. Its 1913 rebuild also included what is described as the first fully automated electric switchboard for a waterworks installed in the United States — a genuinely odd distinction for a brick tower.
The Arcade Building at 1 Riverside Road (1871) by Frederick C. Withers, built under Jenney's supervision and National Register listed on March 8, 2016, has pointed lancet arches formed by colourful banded pressed brick in two colours, Cream City brick, and cut-stone trim.
If you want to see what careful brickwork of this period looks like when it has been maintained, those two are a short walk apart.
What we are not going to tell you
We are not going to tell you what your walls are made of.
No source documents predominant exterior wall material for Riverside's housing stock, and the specific buildings that do have documented materials are mixed — brick, stone and stucco all appear. In a village whose most famous houses are stucco, an unqualified “brick town” claim would be worse than lazy.
We can give you age, with a caveat: roughly 40.3 percent of ZIP 60546 housing — 2,787 of 6,913 units — was built in 1939 or earlier, and about 53.2 percent predates 1950. Census-derived, but through an aggregator rather than a Census table. Median year built we could not source at all, so there is no median on this page.
We also cannot give you a contributing-structure count for the district. The 1969 nomination is a scanned image and could not be read, so rather than borrow a number from somewhere else, we are leaving it blank.
The mortar problem
With more than half the village predating 1950, this is a live question here.
Masonry laid before roughly 1930 sits in lime-based mortar, considerably softer than modern Portland cement mixes. The softness is the design: lime mortar is the sacrificial element in the wall, moving and weathering and taking the freeze-thaw damage so the brick does not. When the joint fails you replace the joint, and the brick is untouched.
Repoint with hard Portland cement and the relationship inverts. The joint becomes stronger than the brick, moisture leaves through the brick face instead of the mortar, and it carries expansion stress with it. The result is spalling — faces flaking, popping and crumbling. A joint can be redone. A spalled face cannot.
On a landmark property this compounds. Get the specification wrong and you have not only damaged the brick permanently, you have done it to a building whose exterior work was supposed to go through the Preservation Commission first. The approval and the specification are the same conversation, and both happen before the trowel.
Questions worth more than a price per square foot
- Is my address on the local landmark list in Appendix D? This is the first question, it has a documented answer, and everything else follows from it.
- Have you taken a Certificate of Appropriateness through Riverside's Preservation Commission before? Ask for a specific address, not a reassurance.
- Which mortar mix, matched to which brick, at what hardness? Listen for whether the answer references your existing mortar or a standard bag.
- Which joint profile — and does it match what is on the wall now?
- Who prepares the sample panel, on which elevation, and does it go with the certificate application?
- Where is any replacement brick coming from? Matching an 1870s or 1900s brick is a sourcing problem, not a same-day purchase.
- How is the old joint being removed? An angle grinder in the wrong hands widens joints and scars brick edges permanently.
A mason who cannot answer those is not cheap. He is quoting a different job than the one your building needs — and on a landmark property, possibly one the village has not approved.
Signs your masonry needs a look
- Mortar you can rake out with a house key, or that falls away as sand
- Joints noticeably recessed behind the face of the brick
- Stair-step cracking following the joints — usually movement, not weather
- Damp patches or white efflorescence on interior walls
- Spalling — brick faces flaking or popping off. Water is already getting in and freezing
- On a stucco elevation, which plenty of Riverside houses have: hairline map cracking, bulging or hollow-sounding areas — a different problem needing a different trade
Any of these on a wall built before 1930 is worth attention before another freeze-thaw season. If your property is a designated landmark, add the Commission's review to your calendar on top of the work itself, because the approval comes first.
Riverside and the surrounding area
Riverside sits on the Des Plaines River between Berwyn and Brookfield, and its street plan is unlike anything around it. If yours is a greystone, a landmark facade or a full estate elevation, start with our greystone, landmark and estate work, compare masonry in Berwyn next door or masonry in Oak Park, or browse every area we serve across Chicagoland.
Questions Riverside owners ask
Do I need approval to tuckpoint my house in Riverside?
Only if your property is individually designated as a local historic landmark, but if it is, the answer is unusually clear. Riverside's own guidance requires a Certificate of Appropriateness approved by the Preservation Commission for any work on the exterior of the home that requires a building permit, and it names the work explicitly: roof repair or replacement, tuck pointing, window repair or replacement, or additions. Painting and interior work do not require approval. This is the most direct statement about tuckpointing in any of the towns we cover. The local landmark list lives in Municipal Code Appendix D, and a secondary source puts it at 80-plus properties, though we could not verify that count. Check your address against Appendix D or ask the Village Planner before scheduling.
I live in the National Historic Landmark district. Does that mean I need a certificate?
No, and this distinction matters more in Riverside than almost anywhere. The Certificate of Appropriateness requirement attaches to individual local landmark designation, not to district membership. Since the district now covers essentially the entire village, nearly every Riverside homeowner is inside a National Historic Landmark, and the large majority of them are not subject to the certificate process at all. So living in the district and needing approval to repoint are two completely different things. Be wary of any contractor who blurs them, because implying that everyone in Riverside needs special permission is a convenient way to sound necessary.
What is the Olmsted connection, and does it restrict what I can do?
Riverside was commissioned in 1869 by investor Emery E. Childs and planned by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, fresh from Central Park, across roughly 1,600 acres of farmland, and it is widely called the first planned suburb in the United States. The plan is why the streets curve with the land and the river rather than running on a grid, and why the commons, setbacks and park system look the way they do. But it is a landscape and street-layout plan, not a building code. It does not regulate materials or dictate what your walls can be made of. The thing that actually constrains exterior work is the local landmark ordinance and its certificate process, not the 1869 drawing.
Are the Frank Lloyd Wright houses good examples of Riverside masonry?
No, and this is a useful test of whether someone actually knows the village. The Avery Coonley House, built 1908 to 1912, is stucco, with tan stucco walls and ceramic tile banding. The F.F. Tomek House, 1905 to 1906 and a National Historic Landmark since 1999, is also stucco. Neither is a masonry building. There was a genuine Louis Sullivan house here too, the Henry Babson House of 1907 to 1909 with George Grant Elmslie, but it was demolished in 1960 and its ornament salvaged, so it cannot serve as any kind of present-day reference. The buildings that genuinely are masonry are the Riverside Water Tower and the Arcade Building.
What masonry in Riverside is actually worth looking at?
Two buildings, both still standing and both properly documented. The Riverside Water Tower, built 1869 and rebuilt in 1913 to a design by William Le Baron Jenney, is red and cream brick on a limestone base with Milwaukee cream-brick pilasters; its 1913 rebuild also included what is described as the first fully automated electric switchboard for a waterworks installed in the United States. The Arcade Building at 1 Riverside Road, built 1871 by Frederick C. Withers under Jenney's supervision and National Register listed in March 2016, has pointed lancet arches formed by colourful banded pressed brick in two colours, Cream City brick, and cut-stone trim. They are a short walk apart and they show what careful period brickwork looks like when it has been maintained.
How old is Riverside's housing stock?
Older than most, though we will flag the sourcing. Roughly 40.3 percent of ZIP 60546 housing, about 2,787 of 6,913 units, was built in 1939 or earlier, and around 53.2 percent predates 1950. Those figures are Census-derived but reached through a data aggregator rather than a primary Census table, so treat them as directional. Median year built we could not source at all, so there is no median on this page rather than an invented one. What that age profile means practically is that more than half the village sits on the older side of the mortar question below, which makes the specification a live issue rather than a technicality.
Are Riverside homes brick?
Some are, and we are not going to generalise. No source documents predominant exterior wall material for Riverside's housing stock, and the specific buildings that do have documented materials are genuinely mixed: brick and stone on the Water Tower and Arcade Building, stucco on the two famous Wright houses. In a village whose best-known architecture is stucco, an unqualified brick-town claim would be actively misleading. If your house is brick or stone and dates from the pre-1930 share, it is well inside the window where tuckpointing, chimney and lintel work start to matter. If it is stucco, the failure signs and the trade are different, and a mason in front of the wall can tell you which you own in about a minute.
Does my Riverside house need different mortar than a modern one?
If it went up before roughly 1930, almost certainly yes, and with more than half the village predating 1950 that covers a lot of houses. Masonry from that era was laid in lime-based mortar, softer than modern Portland cement, and the softness is the design rather than a defect: the mortar is the sacrificial element, moving and weathering so the brick does not. Repoint with hard Portland cement and it reverses, pushing moisture and expansion stress into the brick face and producing spalling that cannot be undone. On a designated landmark property this compounds, because a wrong specification damages the brick permanently on a building whose exterior work was supposed to go through the Preservation Commission first. The approval and the specification are really the same conversation, and both come before the trowel.
How often does brick need tuckpointing in Riverside?
Brick in this climate generally runs 25 to 30 years between repointings, but that is an average rather than a schedule, and exposure decides it. Riverside has no lake frontage and no ravines, but it does have the Des Plaines River running through it past Swan Pond, and properties near the water sit in damper ground and dry more slowly after rain. Beyond that the variables are orientation and street exposure: a south and west elevation takes the driven rain, a chimney above the roofline takes everything, and a wall on Harlem or Ogden takes traffic spray and road salt that a curving interior street never sees. Any mason quoting a whole-house number without walking every elevation is guessing.
Is MasonryPros.us a masonry contractor?
No. MasonryPros.us is a free matching service operated by Media Express LLC, a Chicago digital agency founded in 1995. We do not perform masonry work and we have no office in Riverside. You describe the job once, and we match you with local contractors who do that specific type of work. There is no obligation to hire.