Old World Elegance
[1550 N. State Parkway (1912) Marshall & Fox, architects /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
If you're looking for an apartment today in say, Chicago or New York, you'll often find the
term Old World Elegance used to described a certain building or apartment unit. Those three words conjure up visions of something big, expensive and the word "French" often used to describe the design.
[1550 N. State Parkway, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
When architect Benjamin Marshall designed and built 1550 State Parkway in Chicago's
Gold Coast neighborhood in 1912, the 12-story building was everything you could ask for in stately elegance. With an exterior exploding in Francophile decoration and two floors dedicated to services at ground level, the remaining 10-stories contained single floor, 16-20 room apartments for anyone willing to pay Marshall anywhere from $7,500 to $8,200 a year in rent. A very entrepreneurial architect, he often designed, developed and owned his properties.
[1550 N. State Parkway /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
The original ten families were a who's who of the city's ruling class. Stanley Field, nephew
of the retailer Marshall, oversaw the $3,000,000 trust his uncle had created for the founding of the Field Museum. John Shedd, Chairman of the Board of Marshall Filed & Co., was benefactor of the Shedd Aquarium. Albert Dick, inventor of the mimeograph machine and chairman of A.B.Dick Company. Edward F. Swift, son of Gustavus, the founder of the meat packing behemoth Swift & Co. Edward died at 1550 in 1932 when the 68-year-old packing heir accidentally fell from his 8th floor apartment window.
Marshall was ready to sell his investment property in 1920, much to the dismay of his
select group of tenants whose leases ran until 1932. Worried about the changes that could come under new ownership, the 10 got together and purchased the building for $675,000. They then leased the property back to one another for 99 years with their rental amount determined by the location of their apartment, (higher floors - higher rent) while dividing the monthly maintenance of the building equally. The plan worked until 1944. By that time many of the original owners were dead and no one seemed to want these ornate, over-sized apartments anymore. The shares were sold and the new owners converted the large, single floor apartments into smaller units, 4 to a floor. In 1977 the building underwent a conversion from a rental property into condominiums.
I was lucky enough to visit one of these units in the late 1980s. There were two of the
large, original bedrooms left in the space, and although pieces of the original living room survived, it had shrunken in size. One end had been lopped-off to create a small dining area, and behind that a teensy-weensy galley kitchen. But even in its reduced state I felt like I was still standing in a place that had once harbored an old, elegant and bygone world.
Posted by designslinger at 9/9/2010 1:31 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History, Preservation
Tags: Gold Coast Marshall and Fox Benjamin H. Marshall State Parkway
Categories: Architecture, History, Preservation
Tags: Gold Coast Marshall and Fox Benjamin H. Marshall State Parkway
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