This vintage greystone storefront in Lincoln Park has a secret. Although it looks like several of the other old-time retail spaces along its block on Webster Avenue, behind it lies a bright, soaring contemporary home, with a two-story wall of windows, a rooftop courtyard off the kids’ bedrooms and crisp white finishes.

The home, four bedrooms and about 5,000 square feet, is coming on the market today, priced at $2.5 million and represented by @properties agent Carrie McCormick.

Built in the 1920s and originally a bakery, the building has been residential since sometime in the 1980s, said Mike Hagenson, who with his wife, Lexi, completely rebuilt the interior after buying it in 2014. Although it’s their home, Hagenson’s firm, New Era Chicago, did a similar project about a block away that sold in 2018 for just under $2.3 million and has done several other stylish rehabs of historical houses and multi-flat buildings in Lincoln Park and Logan Square.

For the Webster project, “I wanted as much light inside as possible,” Mike Hagenson said. “Big windows, skylights, whatever we needed.” It’s not easy in an old commercial lot-line-to-lot-line building, but he was helped by a reverse bay on one side wall, an inward bend in the wall that creates a light well.

There had been windows on that wall, but he wanted something larger. “We kept cutting out brick until the window was as big as we could get,” Hagenson said. It’s now about 12 feet tall.

The house is across Webster from Trebes Park, the southern portion of a block whose northern piece holds the Oscar Mayer School. Great Schools gives Mayer 10 out of 10 possible points, and the Chicago Public Schools gives Mayer its highest rating, 1-plus.

The couple plan to move with their two kids to the suburbs, where they’ll do another project, though Mike Hagenson said it won’t be as extensive as this one was.

Immediately behind the storefront facade is a home office, and then this dining room with a built-in banquette and a framed view into the taller space beyond. White oak floors and milky white walls create the modern Scandinavian character Hagenson wanted.

His research found that when the building opened in 1923, it was occupied by Hugo Fritzsche, a baker. Other businesses later occupied it before it became residential.

After a previous owner lost it in foreclosure, the Hagensons bought the building from the foreclosing lender in 2014 for $950,000, according to the Cook County recorder of deeds. Photos from that time show that the interior still had much of its 1980s design, including big silver columns supporting a multi-layered ceiling and a postmodern fireplace mantel that resembled an antique clock.

The minimalist kitchen has a single wall of cabinets and an island, with a glass-railed walkaround overhead.

The tall window that Hagenson cut into the side wall brings natural light and visual drama to the space. The scraped brick wall is a warm complement to the cool white finishes.

The main bedroom is behind the second story of the vintage facade, with a bay of windows that looks out to the trees of Trebes Park. There’s a fireplace in the room and blackout shades on the windows.

A jet-black wall in the second-floor family room contains a fireplace and display nooks.

The two children’s bedrooms and a hallway open onto this rooftop courtyard. A skylight is visible at the lower right corner of the image. There is a second rooftop space atop the walls seen here. It’s accessed by a staircase from this level.

Beneath the rooftop courtyard is this media room on the first floor. It occupies space that used to be outdoors but was enclosed during a prior owner’s renovations.