No front-door knob? What kind of second-rate mansion is this, anyway?
Just about the most famous home built in Chicago in the 19th Century, that’s what.
Millionaire merchant Potter Palmer ordered the construction of a palace overlooking Lake Michigan (near what is now Oak Street Beach) in 1882. In so doing he launched the Gold Coast as the preferred residential enclave for the rich and famous.
Since the Palmers were society leaders, others in Chicago’s elite followed them to the Near North Side.
“It looked like a castle,” said Tim Samuelson, curator of historic architecture at the Chicago Historical Society.
The price tag for the magnificent beach house designed by noted architect Henry Ives Cobb was said to be $1 million–back when a million really meant something.
Palmer and his wife, Bertha, moved into their new home on Lake Shore Drive between Banks and Schiller Streets in 1885.
Having no front-door knob was just a slick trick meant to impress the masses and the wealthy. “It told everyone that no door knob was needed because a servant was always on duty,” explained Samuelson.
The movers and shakers of Chicago have always played the game of oneupmanship. The competition between rival business tycoons extended to their houses, thus producing a long line of luxurious residences over the years.
“These were trophy houses, ornate showplaces with a high level of craftsmanship,” said Chicago architect Howard Decker, principal at DLK Architects Inc.
Though many of these top-of-the-line dwellings of yesteryear have been swallowed up by “progress” (torn down to make way for new and bigger structures), some have survived the wrecker’s ball. A few are even open to the public.
Potter Palmer’s mansion was not among the lucky ones. It was demolished in 1950 to make way for the construction of an apartment building–fully equipped with door knobs, of course.
Some famous Near North Side houses that still exist, though converted for other uses, include Pizzeria Due, the former residence where the Chez Paul restaurant was located and Nickerson House, 40 E. Erie St.
Now occupied by the R.H. Love Galleries, the three-story Nickerson House resembles an Italian Renaissance palazzo with a dark coat of soot.
But inside it sparkles. It is easy to understand why its nickname is “The Marble Palace.” The main hall has a marble ceiling, marble floor and marble walls, plus a grand marble staircase.
“No expense was spared in its construction,” said Richard H. Love, gallery president.
“Lavish detail includes sumptuous marble and inlaid woods. The craftsmanship was exceeded only by the Palmer mansion,” said Love.
“The leaders of society and the beautiful people of that era were entertained at the Nickerson House,” said Love.
Nickerson, a distillery tycoon and one of the founders of the First National Bank of Chicago, moved into the 30-room, 25,000-square-foot home in 1883, a time when the city was awash with some 550 saloons and the first streetcars had just started to roll on State Street.
His new house cost $450,000. At today’s prices, it would cost as much as $50 million, Love estimates.
“The house is virtually unchanged today,” he said. “Nickerson put American art on the walls when it was not fashionable, and we continue that tradition with American art from Colonial times to the present.”
The servants’ quarters were at the rear of the house, now occupied by offices. The house became an art gallery in 1991 after being used for a number of years by the American College of Surgeons.
Before Potter Palmer discovered the Gold Coast, the “best” people in town settled along Prairie Avenue on the Near South Side. Among the notables were Marshall Field, Philip Armour and George Pullman. One of the relics of that era is Glessner House. Built in 1885, it is now a museum.
Not all luxury homes of bygone eras were single-family mansions. After the turn of the century, apartment living acquired an upscale cachet. This quote from the “Directory to Apartments of the Better Class on the North Side of Chicago,” published in 1917, tells it all: “The choice of apartments now to be found in Chicago is such that a family can live in any degree of luxury attainable in a house and with greater economy.”
One example is the building at 1100 N. Lake Shore Dr., where a spacious apartment could be rented for $5,000 a year. Besides the four bedrooms, it had three rooms for servants.
Aiming to suggest style and sophistication, even snob appeal, these apartments featured floor plans with the rooms indicated in French: “salle a manger” (dining room), “chambre a coucher” (bedroom), etc.
Meanwhile, out in the suburbs, country mansions were cropping up, especially in villages along the rail lines.
“The North Shore always was top of the line. Many large, multi-acre estates were built in the ’20s before the Depression,” said John Baird, chairman of Baird & Warner.
“Whole wings of those houses were for the servants. Back then, it was economically affordable to have servants–maids, cooks, gardeners, chauffeurs.”
Catering to the present demand for high-end housing, Baird’s firm opened a Luxury Residences division in 1997. The most expensive property sold to date was Pabst Manor in Glencoe. Listed at $7.4 million, the four-story stone manor and coach house has six fireplaces, elevator, four bedrooms, four guest or staff rooms, solarium, screened rotunda, billiards room and a five-car garage.
Another example of country living at its most opulent can be viewed at the Cuneo Museum and Gardens in north suburban Vernon Hills.
Open to the public since 1991, the Italianate-style palace once was at the heart of the 3,000-acre Hawthorn Mellody Farm.
Built between 1914 and 1918 for utilities magnate Samuel Insull, founder of Commonwealth Edison, it was purchased in 1937 by businessman John Cuneo, founder of the Cuneo Press. Cuneo, a friend of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, shared Hearst’s love of art collecting.
Furnished with a fortune in 17th Century tapestries and Old Masters paintings, it even has some of the furnishings from the Potter Palmer mansion, which were auctioned off when it was torn down.
The 31,000-square-foot Cuneo residence has a great hall with a 40-foot ceiling, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a movie theater, 10 baths with gold-leaf treatments, 8 bedrooms, a glassed-in ballroom with fresco-style paintings, a family chapel with stained-glass windows, two dining rooms and two kitchens.
“It was wonderful to live there, and it has not changed,” said John Cuneo Jr.
“The best parties were on New Year’s Eve, when 50 of the most prominent people in Chicago would be invited for a sit-down dinner.”
The menu was always the same, including caviar, white fish in a cream sauce, pheasant and a chocolate sundae in a coconut shell.
Cuneo recalled that in his mother’s bedroom is one of the first water-cooled air conditioners. “It came from the House of the Future at the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair,” he said.
The wealthy were always the first to get cutting-edge technologies. They were the first to be able to afford electric lights, telephones and central heating.
Labor-saving devices definitely came in handy after the Depression, when the use of servants declined. Smaller families was another force making mammoth houses obsolete.
But the look of the past survives. “The revival styles–Romanesque, Tudor, French Provincial and others–came to Chicago in the 19th Century and continue today,” said architect Decker.
Two trends dominate today’s luxury home market, according to Decker:
“Very large houses of 6,000 to 8,000 square feet have returned. They are being built in the wealthiest suburbs on teardown lots. Some of them seem intrusive and out of scale with the neighborhood.”
The other trend is the renewed popularity of living downtown in luxury high-rises, perhaps topped by the new Park Hyatt/Park Tower just west of the historic Water Tower on Michigan Avenue.
Even Potter Palmer might be impressed by the expensive–$3.5 million plus–views from the 67-story tower.
