Masonry & Tuckpointing in Deerfield, Illinois
In Deerfield, seven people review your storefront and nobody at all reviews your house. Which of those you own decides how this job goes.
The line Deerfield draws that its neighbours do not
Most suburbs either have a preservation commission looking at old buildings, or they have nothing. Deerfield does something more specific, and it matters before you take a single quote.
The Appearance Review Commission — seven members, three-year terms, meeting the fourth Monday of the month at 7:30 pm — reviews exterior proposals and changes to commercial businesses: architecture, signage, landscaping, lighting, HVAC enclosures, public art, outdoor furniture. Its jurisdiction runs to the Village Center and the C-2 Outlying Commercial District.
It does not review residential property at all. So if you own a Deerfield storefront, your facade goes in front of seven people. If you own a Deerfield house, nobody looks at it — there is no historic preservation commission here and no local landmark program. Two masonry jobs on the same street, two completely different processes.
Worth knowing which side of that line you are on before a crew is booked, not after.
Your house is postwar, and that is the point
The numbers, plainly. In ZIP 60015, of 10,829 units: 318 predate 1939 — about 2.9 percent. Only 6.1 percent predates 1950. Meanwhile 51.8 percent went up between 1950 and 1979: 1,794 in the 1950s, 1,986 in the 1960s, 1,835 in the 1970s. The village had 476 people in 1910 and 11,786 by 1960.
So no, your house is not historic, and we are not going to sell you a heritage story about it.
But run the arithmetic that matters. Brick in this climate needs repointing every 25 to 30 years. A typical Deerfield house is 50 to 75 years old. That is past the cycle twice over — and in a great many cases it has never been repointed once.
That is the real Deerfield masonry problem. Not that the buildings are precious. That nobody has been paying attention to them.
The oldest building in Lake County is here, and it is made of logs
For the record, because it makes the point better than any statistic: Deerfield's marquee historic building is the Caspar Ott Log House of 1837 — the oldest surviving building in Lake County, and it is log construction. The Deerfield Area Historical Society keeps it at the Deerfield Historic Village, 517 Deerfield Road, open Sundays 2-4pm, alongside a one-room schoolhouse, a mid-19th-century farmhouse and a c.1900 kitchen.
Charming. Also completely beside the point for a mason. That is the honest shape of this town.
Your house does not need lime mortar. Beware anyone who says it does.
You will read — including on this site, for other towns — that pre-1930 masonry sits in soft lime mortar, and that repointing it with hard Portland cement wrecks the brick. True. And irrelevant to your house.
A 1965 Deerfield ranch was built with Portland cement mortar, and Portland cement mortar is what belongs back in it. A contractor arriving with lime mortar for a postwar house is not demonstrating expertise. He is demonstrating that he read the same article you did.
The rule underneath both cases is the same: match what is already in the wall. On a 1910 bungalow that means lime. On a 1965 ranch it means Portland. Same principle, opposite answer. A mason who only knows one of them is wrong half the time — in this village, almost always.
Postwar brick is a different animal
Most postwar brick is veneer — a single layer of brick standing in front of a wood frame, tied back to it, with an air gap behind. That brick is not holding your house up. It is a rain screen, designed to let some water through and drain it out through weep holes at the base.
Corroding wall ties
The metal ties holding the brick to the frame have sat in a damp cavity for sixty years. When they fail, the veneer works loose: bulging, walls that sound hollow, brick visibly pulled away. Not a mortar problem — repointing will not fix it.
Blocked weep holes
Those small gaps at the base are the only exit water has. They block with mortar droppings from the original build, with paint, with landscaping piled against the wall, with a patio poured later at the wrong height. Once water cannot leave the cavity it sits against the back of the brick and against your framing. Ask a mason to show you your weep holes. If nobody can find them, that is the answer.
The rusting lintel — the classic
The most common postwar masonry failure in the Chicago suburbs. The brick above a wide opening — a garage door, a picture window — is carried on a steel lintel. Water reaches the steel, it rusts, and rust occupies many times the volume of the steel it came from. The lintel swells and jacks the masonry above it upward.
You see a horizontal crack along the mortar line above the opening, brick that looks lifted or bowed, sometimes rust staining. Repointing that crack without addressing the lintel is cosmetic. The steel is still swelling. It comes back, and you have paid twice.
And the chimney, which is usually first
On a postwar house the chimney is often the only real masonry on the building — and the hardest-working. Above the roofline, exposed on all four sides, taking freeze-thaw from every direction while the walls below sit sheltered, with a flue carrying moisture from inside. Open joints near the top, a cracked crown, a leaning stack, white staining, loose brick. It is also the one masonry failure that is a safety question, not only a cost one.
The odd thing about Deerfield's brick
We will not tell you what your walls are made of. No source publishes a facade-material breakdown for Deerfield, and the Census does not collect it.
But here is what is genuinely strange about this town: the only verified brick buildings in Deerfield are institutional. Wilmot Elementary School at 795 Wilmot Road, built in the 1960s, is Mid-century Modern with brick as its primary material, plate glass and aluminum spandrel panels as secondary. Christ United Methodist Church at 600 Deerfield Road, from the 1950s, is brick with brick quoins, limestone lintels and sills, and a mansard roof.
Both come from a survey that covers non-residential buildings only — so they say precisely nothing about houses. But they do tell you something useful: Deerfield's postwar schools and churches are real brick, and they are the same age as the houses. Institutional masonry of that vintage, with limestone detail and quoins, is a serious tuckpointing subject and usually a bigger job than a facade.
Conditional and still useful for your house: if it has brick anywhere — elevations, a front face, a chimney, a stoop — and it went up between 1950 and 1979, it is decades past due. A mason in front of the wall settles it in a minute.
Questions worth more than a price per square foot
- Is this veneer or solid masonry? If he cannot tell you, he has not looked.
- Where are my weep holes, and are they open?
- What is the condition of the lintels over the garage and the big windows?
- Are the wall ties still holding? Any bulging or hollow-sounding areas?
- Which mortar mix, matched to what is in the wall now, at what hardness? The right answer is a Portland mix — but it should still be matched, not guessed.
- On a commercial property: have you been through Appearance Review before?
A mason who cannot answer those is not cheap. He is quoting a different job than the one your building needs.
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
- A horizontal crack above a garage door or picture window, brick above it looking lifted — a rusting lintel
- Veneer that bulges, sounds hollow, or has pulled away — corroded ties
- Weep holes blocked, or nowhere to be found
- Damp patches or white efflorescence on interior walls
- Spalling — brick faces flaking or popping off
- A stoop or steps pulling away from the house
- Chimney: open joints, a cracked crown, or a stack that is not plumb
Any of these on a wall built fifty years ago is worth attention before another freeze-thaw season. Chicago-area winters do the damage; the mortar just tells you first.
Deerfield and the surrounding area
Deerfield sits inland in Lake County, west of Highland Park and north of Northbrook, in the belt where the North Shore stops being old and starts being postwar. If your project is a greystone, a landmark facade or a full estate elevation instead, start with our greystone, landmark and estate work, compare tuckpointing in Highland Park or Northbrook, or browse every area we serve across Chicagoland.
Questions Deerfield owners ask
Does Deerfield review my masonry work?
It depends entirely on whether you own a business or a house, and Deerfield draws that line more sharply than any of its neighbours. The Appearance Review Commission — seven members on three-year terms, meeting the fourth Monday of the month at 7:30 pm — reviews exterior proposals and changes to commercial businesses: architecture, signage, landscaping, lighting, HVAC enclosures, public art, outdoor furniture. Its jurisdiction covers the Village Center and the C-2 Outlying Commercial District. It does not review residential property at all. So if you own a Deerfield storefront, your facade is looked at by seven people. If you own a Deerfield house, nobody looks at it. There is no historic preservation commission here and no local landmark program.
My Deerfield house is not historic. Does it still need tuckpointing?
Almost certainly, and the reason is arithmetic rather than heritage. Brick in this climate generally runs 25 to 30 years between repointings. About 51.8 percent of Deerfield's housing was built between 1950 and 1979 — 1,794 units in the 1950s, 1,986 in the 1960s, 1,835 in the 1970s. So a typical Deerfield house is 50 to 75 years old, which is past the cycle twice over, and in many cases it has never been repointed at all. Historic towns get the masonry attention because the story is better. Deerfield has the opposite problem: nobody talks about its masonry, so nobody maintains it.
Is Deerfield a historic masonry town?
No, and it is not close. In ZIP 60015, only 318 of 10,829 units — about 2.9 percent — were built in 1939 or earlier, and only 6.1 percent predates 1950. The village had 476 people in 1910 and 11,786 by 1960. Its oldest surviving building is the Caspar Ott Log House of 1837, which is the oldest building in Lake County and is made of logs. The Deerfield Area Historical Society keeps it at the Deerfield Historic Village at 517 Deerfield Road, along with a one-room schoolhouse and a mid-19th-century farmhouse. Charming, and entirely beside the point for a mason. Deerfield's masonry conversation is a postwar one.
Should a mason use lime mortar on my 1960s Deerfield house?
No — and if someone offers to, that is a red flag rather than a mark of expertise. Historic pre-1930 masonry was laid in soft lime-based mortar, and repointing it with hard modern Portland cement destroys the brick. That argument is true and gets quoted constantly, but it does not apply to your house. A 1960s house was built with Portland cement mortar and Portland cement mortar is what belongs back in it. The principle underneath both cases is identical: match what is already in the wall. A mason who only knows one answer is wrong half the time, and in this village, almost always.
What is brick veneer and why does it change the job?
Most postwar brick is veneer: a single wythe of brick standing in front of a wood frame, tied back to it, with an air gap behind. Unlike solid historic masonry, veneer is not holding your house up — it is a rain screen. It is designed to let some water through and drain it back out through weep holes at the base, down the cavity behind. That design has consequences at sixty years old. The metal ties that hold the veneer to the frame corrode. The weep holes get blocked by mortar droppings, paint, landscaping or a patio poured later. And once water cannot leave the cavity it sits against the back of the brick and against the framing. So the questions on a Deerfield house are different from a historic facade: are the ties still doing their job, and can water still get out?
Why is the brick above my garage door or picture window cracking?
That is the single most common postwar masonry failure and it has a specific cause. The brick above a wide opening — a garage door, a picture window — is carried on a steel lintel. When water reaches that steel it rusts, and rust occupies many times the volume of the steel it came from. The lintel expands and jacks the masonry above it upward. You see a horizontal crack along the mortar line above the opening, brick that looks lifted or bowed, sometimes rust staining. Repointing that crack without dealing with the lintel is cosmetic; it will come back, because the steel is still swelling. Ask any mason who quotes this what they intend to do about the lintel itself.
Is my Deerfield house even brick?
We genuinely do not know, and neither does anyone else writing about this town. No source publishes a dominant residential facade material for Deerfield, and the Census does not collect it. Here is what is odd and worth knowing: the only verified brick buildings in Deerfield are institutional. Wilmot Elementary School at 795 Wilmot Road, built in the 1960s, is Mid-century Modern with brick as its primary material. Christ United Methodist Church at 600 Deerfield Road, from the 1950s, is brick with brick quoins, limestone lintels and sills, and a mansard roof. Both come from a survey that covers non-residential buildings only — so they tell you nothing about houses. If your house has brick anywhere and went up between 1950 and 1979, it is past due. A mason in front of the wall settles it in a minute.
What about the chimney?
On a postwar house the chimney is usually the first thing to fail and often the only real masonry on the building. It stands above the roofline, exposed on all four sides, with no shelter from anything, and it takes freeze-thaw from every direction while the walls below stay comparatively protected. Add a flue carrying moisture and combustion gases from the inside and you have the hardest-working masonry on the house. Look for open or missing joints near the top, a crown that is cracked, a stack that reads as leaning, white staining, or loose brick. A chimney is also the one masonry failure with a safety dimension rather than just a cost one.
Why is Deerfield called Deerfield?
It took three tries. Horace Lamb and Jacob B. Cadwell settled here in 1835 and the place was called Cadwell's Corner — a shopping center at Waukegan and Lake Cook still carries the name. By 1840 it was Leclair. Around 1849-50 it became Deerfield, after settler John Millen's hometown of Deerfield, Massachusetts, and the local deer; the name beat Erin by a vote of 17 to 13. The village incorporated in 1903 with a population in the low 400s under its first Board President, John C. Ender. One warning if you go looking this up: searches for Deerfield architecture surface the Asa Stebbins House of 1799, described as the first brick house in Deerfield. That is Historic Deerfield in MASSACHUSETTS. It has nothing to do with Illinois, and it has misled more than one contractor's copywriter.
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 Deerfield. 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.
What are the warning signs on a postwar Deerfield house?
Mortar you can rake out with a house key or that falls away as sand. Joints recessed noticeably behind the face of the brick. A horizontal crack above a garage door or picture window, with the brick above it looking lifted — that is a rusting lintel. Brick veneer that bulges, or sounds hollow, or has moved away from the wall — that is corroded ties. Weep holes at the base of the wall that are blocked or that you cannot find at all. Damp or white efflorescence on interior walls. Faces flaking or popping off, which is spalling. A stoop or steps pulling away from the house. And on the chimney: open joints, a cracked crown, or a stack that is not plumb.