Buying a home in Glen Ellyn can be tough if you were once a kid here.

“I can’t tell you many homes we were looking at,” said Paula Ortmann, recalling 20 years ago when her growing family was looking for its next house. “When you grew up in Glen Ellyn, you have perceptions. ‘Oh, that’s so-and-so’s home.’”

She and her husband finally made their decision, but they did not have to overcome those preconceptions. Instead, Ortmann realized, why not pick a house that already feels like home?

Among the countless Glen Ellyn residents who also grew up in the village, more than a few are living in their childhood homes. In fact, if you talk to Ortmann and some of her former classmates at Glenbard West High School, without effort they could recall a dozen second-generation homes.

For all the possible drawbacks, many will say moving back home offers something that can be found in no other house: continuity, both in their lives and in their village.

In 2006, Lance Lambert and his wife moved into his parents’ home on Park Boulevard. They had been wanting to do so for years, but he still was not totally prepared for the transition.

“It’s a weird feeling at first. I’m lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling thinking, ‘This is my mother and father’s room,’” said Lambert, a pediatric dentist in the village. “It was several months of, ‘Yeah, this is my parents house. I’m just visiting.’”

Sometimes major changes are need to make the house one’s own. After purchasing her parents’ home in 1990, Ortmann and her husband launched into a major renovation that more than doubled the square footage.

It also bared some harsh truths as they revamped every room.

“We’re saying, ‘We didn’t like your bathroom,’ that sort of thing,” Ortmann said. “But they were very good about it.”

It also was bittersweet for her parents, who now live in Arizona. “Their memories were being crashed down.”

The generational transition might have been even more poignant for Lynn Vogelsinger, who bought her childhood home about 15 years ago.

She loved growing up in Glen Ellyn and loved the neighborhood, but her parents’ home did not suit her family’s needs. They decided to buy the house, tear it down and build a new one.

It was at times heartbreaking to watch the demolition progress each day, she said.

“My husband said he probably should have sent my mom and I away,” Vogelsinger said. “It was tough, but it was absolutely the right thing to do.”

Even with a new house on the lot, some things don’t change at the Forest Avenue home. This weekend, in fact, the Vogelsingers are gearing up for another long-running family tradition.

“We always have Fourth of July (on) Forest,” Vogelsinger said.

Ortmann’s family has a saying, and it could apply to Vogelsinger’s: “Buy the house, buy the holiday.”

Since 1969, when Ortmann’s parents first moved to Glen Ellyn, every Christmas has been hosted at their home on Sunset Avenue. That did not change when she bought the home.

“It made it easier to swallow the renovation when you keep the family traditions the same,” Ortmann said.

Much the same could be said for the whole of Glen Ellyn.

As the years flow by, the look of the village has changed, whether it be subtly, with renovations and renewals, or in a few large strides, such as the homes that are torn down and built back up.

Even in what remains untouched — the familiar stores and the carefully preserved homes — the faces do not always stay the same.

Yet despite those changes, the character of the village endures. The favorite traditions and the tight-knit network of friends remain.

That fabric of Glen Ellyn does more than merely make it a nice place to live, Ortmann said.

“There are a lot of nice places to live. So why Glen Ellyn?” she asked, pausing to consider the question. “When you grow up in a town like this, you value familiarity.

“I think people in Glen Ellyn value that. They have roots. They have a foundation.”

Ortmann’s oldest son tells her she is not allowed to sell their home until he has a chance to buy it.
In any other town, such talk of a third-generation home might be far-fetched. The changes are too jarring.

“I don’t fear that about Glen Ellyn,” she said. “I think it still has a great family feel.”