Knute Rockne's first home will move, as South Bend seeks amends for last botched effort

SOUTH BEND — Local developers are poised to move legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne's first home in South Bend and build new condos in its place, less than a year after the effort drew the ire of neighbors who saw tree limbs felled by a company lacking the proper permits.

South Bend's Board of Public Works on Tuesday planned to vote whether to allow Wolfe House Movers of Indiana to move Rockne's first home, at 1006 St. Vincent St. in the Harter Heights neighborhood south of Notre Dame's campus, a half-mile west to a vacant lot on Foster Street.

The agreement includes provisions that would require the company to coordinate any tree trimming with city arborists, as well as to pay for other damages incurred during the move. The board on Tuesday voted to table the resolution for a future meeting.

Rockne and his family lived in the St. Vincent Street home from 1920 to 1929. In the 13 years he coached Notre Dame from 1918 to 1930, he led the team to 105 wins and only 12 losses.

Greystone Developers LLC, a real estate firm whose registered agent is Granger developer Patrick Matthews, bought the property for $850,000 in May 2023. The property had sold for about $402,000 three years prior — a sign of rapidly increasing land values near the university's campus.

Real estate: South Bend community land trust, first of its kind in Indiana, aims to keep homes affordable near Notre Dame

According to a proposal heard by the South Bend Plan Commission last year, Greystone seeks to build four condo units at the site neighboring Eddy Street Commons.

Matthews did not respond to a request for comment on these plans. But Steve Smith of Irish Realty, who's involved in moving the Rockne home, confirmed that Matthews plans to develop high-end single-family residential properties at the site.

"There's just a lot of desire to be very close to the University of Notre Dame and to be very close to Eddy Street, to be able to take advantage of the restaurants and retail and the walkability of that whole area," Smith said.

The result is staggering prices for old homes and even vacant lots, Smith said. He compared the neighborhood market, which his company Irish Realty invests in heavily, to a resort town near the ocean.

As one moves closer to Notre Dame's campus and Eddy Street Commons — the ocean, in this analogy — prices soar. Homes have been consistently selling for more than $700,000. Some have surpassed $1 million.

Smith noted that a new 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom unit in Legends Row Condominiums, which is a block north of the old Rockne home, is selling for about $600,000.

"You're basically paying a $400,000 location premium," Smith said of the site.

Settlement underway for damages to South Bend tree canopy

Last June, neighbors took notice when a nonprofit called Habitat for Missions began acting on plans to move the old Rockne house to a vacant lot at 1105 N. Foster St. Smith is a member of the nonprofit's oversight board.

But the plans stalled after Heartwood Tree Care, a Granger company hired by the nonprofit, razed trees that had formed a leafy canopy along St. Vincent Street without obtaining the proper permits from the city of South Bend. A representative said at the time that the company hadn't known firms must be licensed arborists to cut city-owned trees in the public right of way.

The damage was a small but dramatic blow to South Bend's efforts to cover 40% of the city with an urban tree canopy by 2050. The average tree canopy in 2019 was 26%, which is on the low end of the national average among cities.

"It wasn’t until after they’d done significant damage to the trees that we were able to get somebody out there to stop them," said Eric Horvath, South Bend's Public Works Director. "The damage has been done. It’s unfortunate because you had a beautiful tree canopy in this area, and now you’ve got halves of trees hacked off."

While the city can't simply replace a mature tree canopy, officials are negotiating a settlement with Heartwood Tree Care and Habitat for Missions that calls for the payment of some damages and the planting of new trees.

Erin Hanig of SouthBank Legal, an attorney representing South Bend, said the city hired a private urban forestry expert to provide an appraisal of the damages. The settlement proposal sent to the other parties would require them to cover damages and to pay to plant and maintain new trees.

Smith, of Irish Realty and Habitat for Missions, said "we are eager to participate in that and help get that situation corrected, but it's a slow burn."

Rockne home set to move by May, sell for high price

Smith had hoped to move the Rockne home to the Foster Street site last year, but the botched tree trimming delayed the process. If the city passes the agreement Tuesday, he hopes to move the home by the end of April or early May, taking care to avoid busy times like the weekend of the football team's April 20 Blue-Gold Game or Notre Dame's commencement weekend May 17-19.

There are only three more properties where trees may need to be trimmed to make way for the home, Smith said. A new company, Higher Ground Tree Care, will work alongside a member of the city's forestry department and cut limbs only as needed.

Of the initial tree cutting, Smith said, "We felt awful that the trees were trimmed so severely.”

The goal this time "is to do as little trimming as possible on the day of the move," he said.

Matthews, of Greystone Developers, donated the home to Smith's nonprofit so it could be renovated and sold to raise money for Covenant Christian School in Mishawaka. Smith said the goal is to raise $100,000 for the private Christian school to expand its classrooms and build a gym.

Smith said he expects the Rockne home, once moved to the Foster Street site, to sell for upward of $600,000. With renovations, the roughly 3,000-square-foot home will feature five bedrooms, four bathrooms and a new modern basement. The makeover will also include a new garage and a new front porch.

Asked who he thinks will snatch up the home that housed Rockne, Smith said he hopes it's a dedicated South Bend resident — not an out-of-town Fighting Irish fan.

"Certainly our hope is that we’d have a full-time resident that wants to enjoy the Harter Heights neighborhood as much as any of the residents do," Smith said.

Email city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Knute Rockne home to move a year after botched effort to cut trees