DOLTON, IL – There’s a rift growing in the Chicagoland hometown of America’s first pope. Not over what baseball team will get his blessing. Or whether the area’s anti-ketchup stance could become canon. But over his childhood home.
Pope Leo XIV was born in Chicago in 1955 and grew up in a squat brick house just south of the city in the Village of Dolton, a town that boomed in the post-war era but has become blighted like many Rust Belt towns.
The fate of the little ranch house at 212 E. 141st Pl. where he played priest, however, is up in the air. Local leaders want it for Dolton. The owner wants to auction it off to the highest bidder.
“This isn’t just a local purchase, this is a global purchase, a global opportunity,” Steve Budzik, the owner’s real estate broker, told USA TODAY. “We knew if we put it on the open market that might attract the bidder who would be willing to pay the most.”
Paramount Realty, the New York-based company behind the auction, is known for auctioning off the childhood home of President Donald Trump for over $2 million. Other properties it is currently selling include a castle in Pennsylvania appraised at $1.9 million and a Long Island house designed by architect Richard Meier that previously sold for $9.45 million.
