Like the hidden staircase in Francis S. Peabody’s Mayslake mansion in Oak Brook, a secret has been discovered by DuPage County Forest Preserve District officials while trying to renovate the building.
It’s going to cost more money than they had first thought.
A recent decision by Forest Preserve commissioners to keep a large wing that wasn’t part of the original 1921 mansion, combined with a faulty heating system within that wing, has caused a fiscal bump in the overall estimate of the project to roughly $4 million–$1 million more than previous estimates.
“We have committed ourselves to $4 million in future expenses for this project,” said Commissioner Michael Formento (R-Glen Ellyn). “And it’s probably going to be more than that before we’re done.”
By holding on to the so-called retreat wing, which is not considered historically significant, the district will meet federal standards by building restrooms and an entrance accessible to the disabled.
Commissioners also chose to keep the 50,000-square-foot, three-story wing because it provides growth opportunities for the entire Mayslake Forest Preserve, on 31st Street just west of Illinois Highway 83.
Franciscan monks, who owned the mansion after Peabody’s death in 1922 until 1991, built the retreat wing in the 1950s and housed those who came to Mayslake for religious retreats.
But holding on to the wing also has its problems — most of them financial.
To keep the building, commissioners had to approve spending $1.3 million of the $2 million the district has so far set aside for the project to gut all three floors, provide heat and fire protection, and install air conditioning for the restrooms and the entrance area.
“We originally thought that work would cost $500,000 to $600,000,” said the Forest Preserve District’s director of operations, Dan Griffin.
Griffin said the original estimates were based on the district’s belief that it could use the radiator heating pipes inside the retreat wing. But officials recently discovered those pipes were rusted out because they were never capped off after the monks left.
With the $1.3 million now allocated, the district has only about $700,000 left to spend on getting the mansion up to local safety codes.
“What that does is nothing more than open the doors to the public,” Griffin said. “It will not be renovated and there will be no furniture inside.”
Renovating the mansion has been estimated at a cost of $1 million, while filling it with authentic furnishings will cost an additional $500,000, Griffin said. Those figures do not include other improvements, such as building another parking lot, landscaping and adding gardens to the estate.
Still, opening the mansion’s doors could be considered a near-heroic achievement.
The mansion has been closed to the public since 1992, when the Forest Preserve District bought the 90-acre Mayslake Estate for $17.5 million.
Recently hired mansion supervisor Jerry Bulifant said opening the doors is the necessary precursor to getting the mansion renovated and furnished.
By allowing people inside, he said, philanthropist groups likely will be impressed by the home’s grand interior and will want to invest in its future.
“When you see the mansion, it really shows this era of opulence that no longer exists,” Bulifant said.
Designed by Chicago architect Benjamin Henry Marshall, also the architect for Chicago’s Drake Hotel and Edgewater Beach Hotel, the 39-room Tudor Revival mansion was built to mirror a 16th Century English castle built by a duke under King Henry VIII.
Peabody, who made his fortune in the coal industry, had Mayslake built as his retirement estate and named it after his first wife and daughter, both of whom were named May.
