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| 1431 North Astor Street (on left) (JWB, 2011) |
A rare find is the home located at 1431 North Astor Street .
. . an 8,900 square foot manse that has had just four owners in 117 years. Finished in 1894 and designed by the firm
of Holabird & Roche, an undisclosed owner purchased the three-story Federal-style
residence several years back and has given it a makeover, returning it to its
former glory.
The home’s first owner was attorney George W. Meeker, who
was born in the late 1850’s, the son of a coal and iron dealer. George W. was the older brother of
Arthur Meeker, who grew up to become the general manager of Philip Armour’s
meatpacking and feed grain empire and who in 1919 moved his family into the
Charles Platt-designed mansion at 3030 North Lake Shore Drive (April 13, 2010 Connecting
Chicago Blog).
The Meeker’s sold the Astor Street home in 1919 to Edward
and Nora Ryerson. Edward was the
grandsson of Joseph T. Ryerson, who arrived in Chicago in the early 1840’s from
Pennsylvania and leased a shop by the Chicago River from which he sold iron products such
as buggy springs, axles, nails and wrought iron spikes.
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| Ground Floor detail (JWB, 2011) |
Ryerson was a huge beneficiary of railroad expansion
and skyscraper construction at the end of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. The company was one of the first steel companies to produce
stainless steel in large quantities in 1926 and in 1935 merged with Inland
Steel, operating as a wholly owned
subsidiary with plants in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Boston, New
York and Philadelphia. At the time
of the merger the two companies had combined assets of close to $120 million
dollars.
The Ryersons
extended the house by adding 65 feet to the east. Burton and Elaine Gordon bought the home in 1965 and lived there for 40 years. Mr.
Burton received an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1948 and between 1972
and 1996 acted as Chairman of the Board and C.E.O. of the Franklin Park Bank
(1967-69), the Mid Town Bank and Trust Company (1972-77) and the Columbia
National Bank of Chicago (1964-1996), which he founded.
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| Cornice detail at 1431 N. Astor (JWB, 2011) |
The new owners have restored the home to its Federal-style roots. Freed from a skin of steel-grey paint, he details are striking – the texture created by the shades of color in
the brick’s Flemish Bond, the Ionic columns that frame the front entrance and
the white stone trim with decorative keystones that frame the windows. Especially impressive is the cornice
with its combination of dentils, egg-and-dart ornamentation, and a lower band
of balls that looks like a house-sized abacus wrapping around the circular
façade.
On a street of beautiful and distinctively different homes, this beauty ranks right up there with the best of them.
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| Before (www.chicagomag.com) and after (JWB, 2011) |
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