A 1913 Chicago Firehouse Sat Empty for 45 Years. Now It's a $1.9M Lincoln Square Home.

Chicago Fire Station 2100 West Eastwood was built in 1913, decommissioned in 1970, and sat vacant for 45 years before being converted into a single-family home in 2015. The engine bay is now the living room. The original garage door — fire-engine red, restored — is still there. The hose drying rack and pump room have been preserved. The fire pole has not been installed, though the listing notes the home is "fire pole ready." Reddit noticed immediately.

What the Conversion Produced

The 3,600-square-foot home preserves the industrial bones — concrete floors with radiant heat, tin ceilings, exposed brick masonry — while weaving in the kind of finishes you'd expect at $1.9 million. The main living space occupies the former engine bay, a 35-by-22-foot room anchored by the original red garage door as architectural centerpiece and opening through a 20-foot accordion glass wall to a landscaped side yard with turf and cedar-and-steel privacy fencing. The chef's kitchen runs commercial grade throughout: a 6-burner Viking double oven range, oversized pantry, and a dining area built for a crowd. Upstairs, four bedrooms are joined by a secondary living area, a laundry room, and a primary suite with dual California Closets, a dedicated office, and southern exposure. One of the full bathrooms is built specifically for families: two private toilet rooms and two private showers within a single shared bathroom — a detail that earned its own line in the Reddit post. The oversized mudroom, preserved hose drying rack, and pump room round out the working history of the building. The home backs up to the El, which the Reddit poster addressed directly: "Noticeable but typical for the area. Not nearly as bad as The Blues Brothers would lead you to believe."

The Neighborhood — and the Pole Situation

Lincoln Square is one of Chicago's most consistently livable neighborhoods — walkable, unpretentious, close to the Damen Brown Line and Ravenswood Metra, and a short stroll from Gene's Sausage Shop. The home is within walking distance of McPherson Elementary and Lycée Français, and the listing estimates taxes at $27,666 per year. Parking is off the alley, in a small paved area under the train tracks. As for the fire pole: the building is structurally ready for one. It has not been installed. The top Reddit comment on the listing, which collected 411 upvotes, read: "No pole to dramatically get down from my teenage bedroom? The house Anne Hathaway had in The Princess Diaries remains an unattainable dream." The next owner has the opportunity to fix this.

The Internet Has Thoughts

Naturally, this listing caught the attention of Reddit's r/zillowgonewild community. See what people are saying about it here.

Original garage door. Former engine bay living room. Fire pole ready — pole not included. View the full listing here.