Just Around the Corner
When we walk out of our building, this is the street view we encounter. A canopy of trees
shading a historic district that seems to belong to another era of city life - except for all the cars and the prominent DO NOT ENTER sign.
As a pedestrian however, you can enter this bucolic universe and stroll past some
beautiful late 19th and early 20th century homes. George W. Maher, a prominent Prairie School architect, designed five houses on this one block stretch of Hutchinson Street, in Chicago's Buena Park neighborhood. No where else on the entire planet will you find such a concentration of Maher's work. I will take you on a chronological tour, starting with his earliest commission and ending with his last, rather than numerically by address. It will be easier to see the development of Maher's growth as a designer.
John C. Scales made plans to develop this stretch of street in the 1890s, then known as
Kenesaw Terrace. He asked Maher to design the house at Hutchinson and Hazel as the literal cornerstone of the development. Sitting on a heavy rusticated base, the house is a typical Queen Anne Victorian. Perfect for a well-to-do client of the times, it bears no hallmarks of Maher's later Prairie designs. Even the detailing on the dormer is textbook Victorian Gothic.
By the time Maher was asked to design a home for attorney Edwin J. Mosser and his family
in 1902, the architect had shed his Victorian aesthetic and was starting to introduce certain Prairie School details in his work. Even though the column capitals and ornamental banding around the door opening seem too decorative for Prairie styling, even Frank Lloyd Wright, who worked with Maher in the architectural offices of J.L. Silsbee, incorporated very similar decoration early in his career. The large urns on either side of the porch on the other hand, became a signature of Prairie style architecture.
Two years after the Mosser home was built, Maher designed a home for the William H. Lake
family at 826 W. Hutchinson. Maher is coming into his own in terms of a Prairie style language. The large, hipped roof with broad overhanging eaves, the heavy arched doorway, all were elements used by many of the architects developing a new style of "American" architecture.
In 1908, Grace L. Brackebush purchased a lot at the s.e. corner of Hazel and Kenesaw
Terrace from William H. Lake for $18,000. The property was 122 x 141 feet and Maher designed a home for his client which had all the elements of Maher's developing interpretation of Prairie design: the prominent entry, and the band of windows which opened up large segments of wall space to the outdoors, and his segmented arched doorway. And the lions? I have a feeling Mr. Maher would prefer a pair of large urns.
The last house Maher designed on the street is the largest, and the best, representation
of all the classic elements that make up the Maher Prairie style. The owner, Claude Seymour, was the Vice President of a large, commercial firm in Chicago, Otto Young & Co. Unfortunately, Mr Seymour didn't get to enjoy this masterpiece for long. He died in the house in 1914, and was buried in Graceland Cemetery, just a few blocks from his Hutchinson Street home.
Although Maher had a very productive architectural career he had a troubled life, and
committed suicide in 1926. Some of his most recognized work can be found in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park and the western suburb of Oak Park, which has the largest collection of Prairie style homes in the world. But, for a quick overview of the man's architectural career, nothing beats our little neighborhood street.
Posted by designslinger at 6/30/2009 2:59 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History, Architects, Preservation
Tags: Prairie style Hutchinson Street Historic District George W. Maher
Categories: Architecture, History, Architects, Preservation
Tags: Prairie style Hutchinson Street Historic District George W. Maher
What wonderful houses. Any idea who lives in them now?
Like the original owners, people with money.
If it hadn't been for them though, the houses probably would have been destroyed long ago.
The neighborhood surrounding Hutchinson Street fell on hard economic times in the 1960s and 70s, and the housing stock went through a substantial decline.
But, the neighborhood has seen regentrification in the past decade.