Hemmed In
[Wheeler-Kohn House (1870) Otis L. Wheelock, architect /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
We've spent the past couple of days talking about the aftermath of the October, 1871
Chicago Fire and posted pics of two buildings constructed right after the devastating conflagration that are still standing in the city 136 years later. The Calvin T. Wheeler mansion is a survivor of that era but was built a year before the fire in 1870 and survived because it happened to have been located in a part of town south and east of the fire's start which then burned north, away from Wheeler's Calumet Avenue house.
[Kohn House (1870/1885) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
When Wheeler asked architect Otis Wheelock to design a home for him on Calumet the
street was a pathway cut through sand. The area was primarily vacant, with grass-filled lots comprising the soon-to-be very posh Prairie Avenue residential district when Wheeler decided to build his house, and the architect produced a pretty straight-forward Second Empire design, which was popular at the time. Wheeler didn't stay long and left the neighborhood in 1874 when he sold the home to Joseph Kohn who owned a successful wholesale clothing business with his brothers. By that time the merchants and industrialists who would put Chicago on the map in the late 19th and early 20th century were building their large homes on the adjoining blocks. After a decade of big changes in the neighborhood, Kohn decided that Wheelock's Victorian wasn't quite in keeping with the scale of the neighboring houses so the clothing merchant commissioned an addition to the house which consisted of a large bay window and elaborate wood porch to enhance the front facade.
[Wheeler Mansion, 2020 S. Calumet Avenue, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
I still find it amazing that this neighborhood, which once had one of the largest
concentrations of wealth in this country living within its borders, would change so quickly. By 1910 when the widowed Mrs. Kohn left Calumet Avenue, the lots across the street, which had been vacant for years and provided a view of Lake Michigan, now contained a building housing the Buick Motor Company and another for the National Chemical Company. It was the beginning of the end for the elite community and their expansive and richly decorated mansions. By 1920, when this large factory building was built next door to the Kohn house, the mansion had become the home of a printing press operation and eventually the headquarters of the Murray Egg and Butter Company's office and storage warehouse. By the 1960s, the old house was one of only a handful of original mansions still standing in the former mansion-packed neighborhood, now hemmed in by manufacturing plants.
By the late 1990s in another twist of the urban saga, the factory buildings were coming
down or being converted into residential lofts. The Wheeler-Kohn house was bought and extensively renovated and restored, to become the Wheeler Mansion, a luxury, boutique hotel. And the factory next door, well its been converted into Chess Lofts, providing sleek, industrial living to a new breed of urban pioneers.
In case you missed the two previous related posts: Building Boom and Dinner Is Served,
plus After the Fire.
Posted by designslinger at 10/14/2010 1:47 AM 
Categories: Architecture, Urbanism, History, Preservation
Tags: Otis L. Wheelock Chicago mansions mansions Prairie Avenue Second Empire
Categories: Architecture, Urbanism, History, Preservation
Tags: Otis L. Wheelock Chicago mansions mansions Prairie Avenue Second Empire
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