James Charnley Residence HABS ILL,16-CHIG,12-2

The James Charnley Residence, also known as the Charnley-Persky House, is a

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...

at 1365 North Astor Street in the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

neighborhood of

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Built in 1892, it is one of the few surviving residential works of

Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...

. The house is owned and operated as a museum and organization headquarters by The

Society of Architectural Historians The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) is an international not-for-profit organization that promotes the study and preservation of the built environment worldwide. Based in Chicago in the United States, the Society's 3,500 members include ...

(SAH). It was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1998, and is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

Description

The Charnley Residence is located in Chicago's

north of the commercial downtown, at the southeast corner of North Astor Street and East Schiller Street. It is three stories in height, with a raised basement of stone and stories of largely austere brickwork. The façade is divided into three parts, the center portion housing the main entrance in a stone surround flanked by paired sash windows. Above it is a projecting ornate wooden balcony that obscures the fact that the wall behind it is recessed. The flanking sections each have single sash windows set on large expanses of brick, in deep rectangular openings with splayed soldier brick lintels. The third level is separated from the lower levels by a stone stringcourse, and has two deeply recessed square windows in each section. The interior of the house is a marked contrast to its relatively plain exterior. It has high-quality woodwork throughout, with built-in bookcases featuring doors with glass of varying shapes and sizes. The main library features a fireplace of African rose marble, and the dining room has extensive use of mahogany, a favorite wood of Louis Sullivan's.

History

The house was completed in 1892 for Charnley, a Chicago lumberman who lived in the house with his family for about a decade. It is a distinctive and original design of Sullivan's, in which a modern aesthetic was brought to an essentially Classical symmetrical form. Charnley and Sullivan were mutual friends as Sullivan designed vacation homes for them also in Mississippi. The building was later owned by members of the Waller family, who invested in real estate. The house was purchased by the architectural firm of

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John Merrill. The fir ...

in 1986 and subsequently restored. Seymour Persky purchased the house in 1995 and donated it to the SAH who renamed the building to the Charnley–Persky House to honor their benefactor.

References

Historic American Buildings Survey Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

HABS ILL,16-CHIG,12- * Richard Longstreth (ed.) 2004. ''The Charnley House: Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Making of Chicago's Gold Coast'', University of Chicago Press, 249 pages * Storrer, William Allin. ''The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion''. University Of Chicago Press, 2006, (S.009)

External links

Charnley House WebsiteA site about the James Charnley House
*High-resolution 360° Panoramas and Images o
James Charnley House , Art Atlas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Charnley Residence Frank Lloyd Wright buildings Houses completed in 1892 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Chicago Louis Sullivan buildings National Historic Landmarks in Chicago Museums in Chicago Historic house museums in Illinois 1892 establishments in Illinois Chicago Landmarks

Description

History

See also

References

External links