After father Joe bought Kingston Cleaners in 1971, the McGees offered top-shelf service in Homewood, Illinois. Forty years of Kingston fairness, warmth and generosity earned the McGees first respect, then trust, and ultimately the fondness of the people in town who hold their Kingston friends dear. As caring neighbors, the McGees and loyal employees have love-laced their trade. Nonetheless, changing times have changed business, and now have changed Kingston Cleaners into the real estate franchise Prospect Equities®.
For 33 of those 40 years, Joe’s son Mark, as both employee and later owner, turned on the equipment at 5:30am to beat the heat in the sauna-like cleaners. Especially in summer, all production workers tried to be out by 12 noon, or else they’d nearly boil of the heat. Undaunted, the counter staff would hang in until 6pm. Through three-decades-plus, father and son worked side by side. Mark honored his father’s business decisions. In 1989, at 62 Dad sold Kingston to his son Mark and handed the business reigns to him, giving up his control. He then likewise respected the changes Mark implemented. The two neither fought nor had words.
“How many kids have had the chance to have spent as much time with a parent as I have had,” marveled Mark, eyes moist and gleaming under wavy, thick, salt and pepper hair with mustache and goatee to match.
And for 15 years following the sale, Dad joined Mark to open Kingston at 6am, never accepting a dime. Mark appreciated the “blessing” of Dad’s presence. He could discuss operations with his and Kingston’s “Father”. Along the path, Mark bought Pahnke Cleaners in Chicago Heights, a shop where Dad had worked when Mark was born. Mark had thought “it would be nice to own the cleaners Dad had always wanted”.
During the era when business people dressed in fine linen shirts, tailored wool (countless $2,000 Armani suits crossed the counter hundreds of times), and shiny shoes, business at Kingston Cleaners boomed. The “gravy train rolled”, Mark mused.
“Other dry cleaner owners all knew me or my Dad, or they knew of us as one of the better establishments,” Mark explained. As Mark’s stature grew in Chicago’s dry cleaning world, industry colleagues sought Mark’s professional advice and trusted what he said.
Meanwhile, moonlighter Mark (that is, starting at noon when the cleaning machines halted) would rehab houses, and in 1999 he got a real estate license to increase profits. When dry cleaning colleagues of decades began to retire, they hired Mark to sell their establishments. Given Mark’s real estate and dry cleaning expertise, Mark will continue to develop this dry cleaners real estate niche market.

In 2002, Mark had hired on as the fourth real estate agent at Prospect Equities®, Inc. (PE) in Orland Park. Despite PE’s having just opened, from day one Mark knew Managing Broker Rich Killian ran a company he believed in and trusted. PE offered the best deal anywhere for agents, and as Father Joe always said, “I won’t make a living off the backs of my workers.” That was Killian: generous with commissions and his time.
In less than a decade PE’s founder Rich took PE from an Orland Park basement to the fifth largest privately-held real estate company in Illinois. Wow! For years Mark thought about approaching Rich to duplicate the PE model. When Mark did spill the beans, Rich interrupted that he’d already submitted a franchising application in Illinois!
“That would be magnificent—absolutely fantastic!” Rich beamed. With Rich behind him 100%, the green light glared. Mark was full steam ahead.
Because alas, times had changed. “Casual” dress had become the norm–to the horror of “dress up” diehards. There were “no rules on how to be presentable anywhere”, Mark summed up. Plus new fabrics didn’t require dry cleaning and operation costs had skyrocketed. Dry cleaners faced challenges. Mark had seen the writing on the wall. With business tighter and tougher, Mark presented his real estate idea to Dad and Mother Betty, the McGee family’s glue.
“Mark, you’ve got a solid plan,” Dad had said as Mom agreed. Mark’s parents would back him, once again!
So on the third Tuesday in February, 2011, son, dad, mom and the wider McGee “family” closed Kingston Dry Cleaners which all-tolled had logged a 56-year run. Among the faithful stood Kingston’s 30-year employee Tami who would miss tending Kingston’s flower beds and boxes which for many years won Homewood’s “Most Beautiful Business Award”. But Tami herself had proved the most beautiful of all. She had called every single customer by name whether they walked into the cleaners or she ran into them on the street.
“We’ll make it. There are no other options. With Rich’s commitment and both our hard work, I know it will work,”
Mark declared. With Mark McGee the kind of guy who gives to others, shares of himself, works tirelessly, and tackles life’s curve balls to win, he got to make. These traits do spell success.
Besides, Mark is a dad himself and his key treasure, three cherished children, steal his show. Every trip to the ball field, every report card of A’s, and a high school prom dress all make Mark proud. He will not let his kids, or himself, down!

Still, the proof’s in the pudding, and until we see, consider this. As a young single with pocket money, Mark traveled the world, often solo as his buddies had wives and kids. One trip took him to Tanzania, Africa, to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Doesn’t everyone?
The group included three men from South Africa who supposed that the young American with no climbing background would never reach the summit. They heckled Mark with countless jabs, including “Congratulations so far, but don’t think you’re ever going to make it,” when they crossed his path on the climb.
Meanwhile, mind you, Mark had trained with one half-mile run that left him panting. He’d pronounced “That’s good!” and boarded the plane. HA!
Arising at midnight that last sleepless night of the climb to see the sun rise above the clouds on the freezing ice cap, the nine survivors and Mark summoned every ounce of strength they owned to persist in this grueling effort. They climbed cold cinders that last leg up the dormant volcano advancing three steps only to slide back down, over and over.
Yet despite his odds, Mark McGee not only completed the climb, but claimed the summit first of the five who reached the top. How? “I had a lot of heart” Mark explained.
I guess! Ten percent who try succeed! Mark had known the guys back home would never let him live it down if he missed. Mark could not, would not, give up, long after the three obnoxious hecklers quit mind you. “Yes, I proved them wrong,” Mark recalled, satisfied all over again.
“I’m always rolling the dice on something,” smiles Mark twinkling in the telling.

Meanwhile, Oak Brook based Illinois real estate franchisor Prospect Equities®, has burst its buttons—awarding its second franchise to owner Mark McGee of Prospect Equities® in Homewood, Illinois. He and Prospect Equities® CEO Richard Killian, the long-term associates, have joined forces. PE’s fourth agent chose the new real estate company Prospect Equities® back in 2002, and the nine-year PE veteran agent again chose PE, his franchise of choice. Prospect Equities® could not want nor welcome Franchise #2 more.
“I know if I’m your first franchise, you won’t let it fail,” Mark had said to Rich way back when. While now batting for Franchise #2, this team will score.
An experienced rehabber of houses, Mark today is pounding nails, installing drywall, he’s replaced the south wall and little, old windows for new six-footers that scream “Let there be light” in the new realty office at 2401 183rd Street, right across the street from Walt’s. With the generous help from two buddies in the trades, Mark is rebuilding the former Kingston Cleaners, the McGee family business which Mark joined at seventeen.
For decades the successful Kingston Cleaners champs won hearts as they earned their families’ livings, and Homewood’s new Prospect Equities® will do the same. Father Joe McGee will stand tall watching from above, for here’s real life. Two weeks after Kingston closed, Dad took his last breath. Parkinson’s disease got him. So, as Joe’s world moved on, so did he. And what hardball he’d played!
Speaking of ball, spring is here and that’s a good diversion for the McGees. Every McGee is primed as ever to cheer on their Chicago team the best ever! And, Tami! How about your flowers to spruce up the new Prospect Equities® office?
Do call Prospect Equities®’s Mark McGee, any time, with your real estate questions and needs at 708-466-6275. Plus, do visit www.prospectequities.com for the Grand Opening June date in Homewood. All the “McGees” of Prospect Equities® hereby invite you and will be there to greet you!