During the Great Depression, hoboes passing through the little farm town of Naperville could hop off the train and get a sandwich or a bowl of soup at 406 E. Fourth St.

In exchange, homeowner Arthur Miller asked them to do an unusual task: roll huge, heavy, uncut fieldstones from the pile at one side of the lot, and hoist them up to form the walls of a new house. Miller, a professional mason who had experience building grottoes, had been collecting the boulders for several years from farmers who dug them up out of their fields. He would have the hoboes lay the stones, fitting them as tightly as possible, and when he came home from work he would mortar the rocks together.

After the rough stone exterior was up, Miller built the interior walls and floors of his new house with lumber from his family's existing farmhouse on the lot.

Today, the farmhouse and the hoboes are gone but the Stone House is still there, and "They used to call this the fortress," says Realtor Vince Ory, a former member of the Naperville Historic Sites Commission, who originally listed the 80-year-old house. "It's indestructible."

It's also completely updated, with four bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, an new kitchen, a full finished basement with in-law space, and media upgrades. Total living space is 2,700 square feet above grade and another 500 in the finished basement.

Descendants of Arthur Miller and his wife owned the house until 1986, but it had been a rental for quite awhile. When Trula and Ernest Jaffarian bought it 15 years ago, the wide wooded lot was overrun with saplings and brambles, the windows rattled and the property looked like an old haunted house.

While raising their two children there, the Jaffarians cleared the lot of more than 60 trees, re-laid the patio, re-landscaped and refurbished the stonework, including adding onto the front porch with leftover stones they had found around the yard. They also repaired the home's stone wishing well and added a working fountain.

Inside, they replaced the yellow laminate countertops put in by a previous owner with granite and refurbished the original cabinets. One of the counters is underneath a window that looks out over the lawn to the Burlington Northern railroad tracks across the street.

"This is where Mrs. Miller was making bread the day of the train crash," Trula Jaffarian says. On April 25, 1946, in one of the nation's worst train accidents, two trains collided when one made an unscheduled stop on the tracks near the house.

Forty-seven people died and 127 were injured that day, doubly tragic because many passengers were servicemen returning from World War II. The Stone House became a de facto infirmary as several engineers and passengers were brought in while waiting for medical care.

The Jaffarians also added a recessed panel wood ceiling in the dining room and replaced the modern light fixture with a 1920s piece they found at a flea market. Years later when the Millers' daughter, Marciana Miller Lauing, saw the remodeled room, she told the Jaffarians the hanging light was very similar to the original.

"My husband had big plans for this house, but I wouldn't let him move any walls," Jaffarian said. Even so, the family was able to make several changes to update and modernize the home, including changing one small upstairs bedroom into a bathroom with a wash basin set in an antique cabinet, adding a master bath and more closet space to the bedroom. They also added a half-bath and closet desk in the attic when they converted the space into a bedroom for their son, then added media technology up there to create a movie room complete with roll-down screen and a projector television. They added window treatments that would not hide the home's unusual, rounded corner plaster work around every window.

In the basement they removed a bathroom from the center of the space and added one to the side. They added a sitting room and a half-kitchen, effectively creating an in-law or nanny space.

Despite the fact that the inside lives much like a modern home, the stone exterior made it difficult to price, Ory said. The house has virtually no real comparisions for setting value.

"I've never seen a house like this," he said. "There really just is nothing else like it. It's unique."

With nothing else to guide him, he based the price on the usual guidelines, such as lot size, location, square footage and condition. Originally the sellers priced their home at $1,195,000, which includes the entire parcel. In order to bring the price down below $1 million, Ory explained, they later tried listing it without its adjoining lot, which functions as the home's back yard. Eventually, the Jaffarians took the home off the market, and have recently relisted it with another Realtor for $999,950 including the adjoining lot.

Ironically, if the entire parcel were vacant, Ory said, it probably would sell for around $1 million, giving the unique, historic home almost no value on its own. Due to the worth of the land underneath it, the home is in danger of becoming yet another Naperville teardown. The Jaffarians would like to see the house earn a historic designation that could protect it from demolition.

They recently worked with officials at the city's historic park, Naper Settlement, to have a plaque installed on the house with its original owner's name and date of construction.

Part of the reason for the home's pricing is to try to prevent a teardown, says Ernest Jaffarian.

"If the price is too attractive, somebody will tear it down and put three townhomes on the site," he says.

While the norm in Naperville, which long ago outgrew its farm town roots, tends toward newer construction for affluent suburbanites, there may be someone who appreciates the Stone House's uniqueness, the Jaffarians believe.

Ory hopes they are right.

"It will take a very special buyer for this house," he says.