The Auditorium and Ferdinand Peck

Tuesday December 9, 2014, marks the 125^th anniversary of the opening of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre.  Much has been written about the Auditorium Building, its magnificent theater, the architects Adler & Sullivan who designed it, and its importance in the history of American architecture.  In this article, the 200th published to our blog since we began in January 2011, we shall look at the home of Ferdinand Wythe Peck, the driving force behind this monumental undertaking. 

Peck’s family was among the earliest to arrive in what would become the city of Chicago.  His father Phillip F. W. Peck, and mother Mary Kent Peck, arrived at the settlement of 250 inhabitants at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1831 aboard the schooner “Telegraph.”  Phillip Peck became a successful merchant in the rapidly growing city, and by the time of Ferdinand’s birth in 1848, was residing in a fine home at the corner of LaSalle Street and Jackson Boulevard, later site of the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company.

Ferdinand Peck studied law and was admitted to the Chicago bar, but with the advantages of a privileged upbringing, devoted most of his efforts to civic affairs and becoming a promoter of his native city.  He was one of the founders of the Art Institute and a major backer of Chicago’s first opera festival in 1885, which led directly to the idea for the new Auditorium.  He incorporated the Chicago Auditorium Association in 1886 and served as its president.  Peck envisioned not just a grand theater, but the largest and most expensive theater in the world.  The complex would include a hotel and office block to help support the lavish productions anticipated for the theater.  Fellow board members included Marshall Field, George Pullman, Edson Keith, and many other business and social leaders who lived on and around Prairie Avenue on the city’s near South side.

As work continued on the Auditorium Building, Peck engaged William LeBaron Jenney to design a new home for him at 1826 S. Michigan Avenue, in the exclusive residential district where many of his board members resided.  The imposing structure, faced in Vermont granite, featured a massive four-story square tower over the entrance way at the north end, balanced by a three-story rounded tower to the south.  The overall design was Romanesque Revival, later known as Richardsonian Romanesque in honor of its chief practitioner, Henry Hobson Richardson.  Richardson had three structures underway in Chicago at the time including the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, and large homes for Franklin MacVeagh on North Lake Shore Drive, and the Glessner House at 1800 S. Prairie Avenue. 

Mr. and Mrs. Peck were anxious to host President Benjamin Harrison at their new 30-room home for dinner following the opening of the Auditorium Theater on December 9, 1889; however the house was far from finished as the time approached.  In the three days leading up to the opening, crews worked 24 hours a day to finish painting the rooms, installing furniture and draperies, and making sure everything was in order to welcome the presidential party.  Friend and neighbor Marshall Field loaned furniture, draperies, and rugs from his store.

The dinner party at the house went off as planned, with guests including President Harrison, Vice President Levi P. Morton, members of his cabinet, and Adelina Patti, the opera star who had sung “Home, Sweet Home” at the Auditorium dedication.  An oft repeated story states that when President Harrison arrived at the house and exited his carriage, he looked up at the façade of the house, which did bear a strong similarity to the Auditorium Building, and referred to it as the “Auditorium, Jr.”

"The Exposition Out of Debt"

Ferdinand Peck, known for years as “Commodore Peck” due to his interest in yachting, remained active in civic affairs, although the Auditorium would always be considered his greatest achievement.  He served as first vice-president and chairman of the finance committee of the World’s Columbian Exposition – one of the few world’s fairs ever to make a profit.  Many important guests were entertained at the Peck home during the Fair, including the Infanta Eulalia of Spain.

A few years later came another president – President William McKinley – who in 1900 appointed Peck as the American commissioner-general to the Paris exposition of that year.  In the years following, many European dignitaries Peck met during that Fair were entertained in his home.

Peck continued to live in his Michigan Avenue house until his death on November 4, 1924, even though the character of the street had significantly changed by that time.  In the early 1900s Michigan Avenue saw a rapid transformation from a fine residential street into what became known as “Motor Row,” with more than 100 automobile dealerships lining the avenue both north and south of the old Peck house.  At least one of those buildings, a beautiful Second Empire style white terra cotta clad building at 1925 S. Michigan, was financed by Peck as an investment in 1911, and was leased to B. F. Goodrich.  (It still stands today and is now part of the Motor Row Historic District). 

Photo by Jack Simmerling

Peck’s widow and son, Ferdinand Jr. remained in the house for several more years, later moving to a spacious apartment at 2238 Lincoln Park West.  The house was sold to another family and was eventually cut up into numerous small apartments.  The last mention of the old house in the Chicago Tribune was in November 1967 when the Auditorium Theater was reopened after a major restoration.  Arthur Johnson, a reporter for the Tribune wrote, in part:

“The mansion, massive and majestic, still stands, as tho in defiance of the commercial buildings surrounding it.  Weeds grow in the front and side yards.  Several windows are cracked or broken and a ‘rooms for rent’ sign is nailed to a post on the front porch.  Ghosts must have walked there last Tuesday night, waiting for the President’s carriage to roll up the side drive after the opening performance at the Auditorium.  The night passed, however, with nothing to disturb the pigeons that roost under the canopy at the stately side entrance but a stray dog or perhaps a derelict looking for a place to sleep.”

From an original sketch by Jack Simmerling, 1974

The house fell to the wrecker’s ball two years later, in 1969.  Today the site is part of a large townhouse development known as Michigan Avenue Gardens, constructed in 1998.  Peck’s house may be gone, but his greatest achievement – the Auditorium – is his lasting and enduring legacy to his beloved city of Chicago.

Elbridge Keith House

The Elbridge G. Keith house at 1900 S. Prairie Avenue is one of just seven surviving houses on the “sunny street that held the sifted few” – Chicago’s most exclusive residential street in the late 19^th century.  The imposing three-story limestone clad house with slate mansard roof is the last surviving example of the Second Empire style which dominated the Prairie Avenue streetscape. 

The house was built in 1870-1871 for Elbridge Gerry Keith, one of three Keith brothers to reside on Prairie Avenue.  Keith was born on July 16, 1840 in Barre, Vermont, and was named in honor of Elbridge Gerry, who served as vice-president under President James Madison.  He was descended from James Keith, a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman who came to America about 1650, settling in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  He grew up on the family farm, and after clerking in a general store in Barre, came to Chicago in 1857, joining his brothers Edson and Osborne, and working in the business selling hats and caps. 

In 1865, he married Harriet Hall in her hometown of Ottawa, Illinois.  They set up housekeeping on the 1700 block of Michigan Avenue.  In the same year, his brothers reorganized their firm as Keith Brothers and he was admitted as a partner.  It grew into one of the largest millinery firms in the entire country.  The firm continued as such until 1884, when it was again reorganized as Edson Keith & Co.  No longer a partner in the business, Elbridge Keith that year helped to organize the Metropolitan National Bank, serving as its president until its consolidation with the First National Bank of Chicago in 1902.  In that year, he was elected president of the Chicago Title and Trust Company, which position he retained until his death.

Dining room

In 1868, Keith purchased a double lot on Prairie Avenue for $10,750 and engaged John W. Roberts to design his new home.  Roberts began his career in the office of the prominent American architect Richard Upjohn before coming to Chicago, and designed numerous large residences in the city.  In the 1880s the house was significantly enlarged with the addition of the third floor mansard roof, and an addition to the rear. 

Keith was deeply interested in education, serving for many years on the Chicago Board of Education.  In 1883, a school was built at 3400 S. Dearborn and was named the Keith School in his honor.  (It closed in 1959 and was demolished soon after for the expansion of the campus for the Illinois Institute of Technology).

Keith was extremely active in civic affairs.  He was elected a director of the World’s Columbian Exposition, and later treasurer of the University of Illinois.  He was one of the incorporators and president of the Union League Club, and at various times served as president of the Commercial Club, the Banker’s Club, the Y.M.C.A. and the Chicago Orphan Asylum.  Additionally, he served as treasurer of the Moody Bible Institute, the Chicago Bible Society, the Bureau of Charities, and the Home of the Friendless. 

He and his wife had six children – sons Carl, Harold, Stanley, and Elbridge, and daughters Susie and Bessie.  Keith died at his home on May 17, 1905 and was interred in a large plot at Graceland Cemetery.  He left an estate valued at $980,000.  Bequests were made to a number of charities including the Moody Bible Institute, the Chicago Visiting Nurses’ Association, the Chicago Old People’s Home, Beloit College, the American Sunday School Union, and the Chicago Home for the Friendless. 

Keith also directed the income from a trust fund to his church of 30 years, the Christ Reformed Episcopal Church at Michigan Avenue and 24^th Street, and gave an outright gift to its longtime leader, Bishop Charles E. Cheney.  In September 1905, the church dedicated a tablet in memory of Keith which read, “To the glory of God and to the memory of Elbridge Gerry Keith, a beloved Bible class teacher in the Sunday school and senior warden of the church.”

Elbridge Keith’s widow Harriet remained in the home for a number of years after which she moved to a spacious apartment at 999 Lake Shore Drive.  She sold the Prairie Avenue house in 1920 and later moved to Pasadena, California where she died in 1933. 

In 1934, the house was acquired by a publishing company, Domestic Engineering.  It was used as offices for various publishers until 1974, when it was purchased by Wilbert Hasbrouck, an architect who had been involved in the rescue of Glessner House several years earlier.  

His wife Marilyn opened a book store in the house known as the Prairie Avenue Bookshop, which featured architectural books, prints, and fragments.  (For many years following, it was regarded as one of the pre-eminent architecture bookstores in the country).  The building also served as the offices for the Hasbroucks’ publishing company, the Prairie School Publishing Company, which produced The Prairie School Review. 

In 1978, the Hasbroucks sold the house to journalists Steven Pratt and Joy Darrow, the latter a grand-niece of the famed attorney Clarence Darrow.  They undertook extensive restoration work on the house including a $60,000 reconstruction of the elaborately bracketed cornice.  In October 1986 they opened the Prairie Avenue Gallery on the first floor, which hosted dozens of art exhibits.  The coach house was leased to Royal Carriages, which boarded horses on the ground floor, the drivers living up above.  Following Darrow’s death, daughter Marcy moved back in the house.  In 1997, she leased the first floor to Woman Made Gallery, which had been organized five years earlier to provide women artists with the opportunity to exhibit, publish, and perform their work.  In 1999, the coach house was completely renovated into a single residential unit.  Today, the first floor functions as a special events venue hosting art exhibits, weddings, and more.  For more information, visit www.keithhousechicago.com. 

On October 25, 2014, a very special event took place when nearly two dozen descendants gathered at the old family home for a reunion.  They were all descended from Elbridge Keith's son Carl, who had married Cornelia Alling of 2131 S. Calumet Avenue on January 1, 1901.   Carl Keith, who had written his reminiscences of the house and neighborhood in a manuscript entitled “The Home” would no doubt have been very pleased to see the house once again functioning as the Keith family home.  

Prairie Avenue in 1874

On Thursday June 19, 2014 at 6:00pm, Glessner House Museum Executive Director and Curator William Tyre will give a lecture entitled “A Look Back: Chicago and the World in 1874.”  The free event, sponsored by Friends of Historic Second Church, will take place at Second Presbyterian Church, 1936 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood, and is being held to celebrate the 140^th anniversary of the completion of Second Presbyterian’s current church building.  Doors will open at 5:30pm for tours of the National Historic Landmark sanctuary before the program begins.

The Prairie Avenue neighborhood surrounding the church was a thriving residential neighborhood in 1874, and was home to many of Chicago’s leading business and social leaders.  The area was well established by the time of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and nearly 40 mansions had already been built on the six-block stretch of Prairie Avenue between 16^th and 22^nd streets.  Building activity increased immediately after the fire, as residents who had been burned out in the fire sought a new location where they could immediately begin building their new homes. 

The illustration at the top of the article appeared in the May 1874 edition of The Landowner, a monthly periodical focusing on the work of architects and real estate developers in and around Chicago.  The image includes eight of the most prominent houses on Prairie Avenue, and one street scene, and bore the following caption:

“Our artist shows in this issue a number of the beautiful houses on Prairie avenue, one of the most fashionable and handsomely built of all our South-Side thoroughfares.  No city in the world can rival Chicago in its residences, a fact which shows that this class of buildings has not suffered by the fire and the consequent turning of capital into the erection of business blocks.

“After all, one of the greatest attractions a city can offer is its homes, for to obtain them is the end of most men’s aspirations, for which they toil and sweat in the counting-room and at the various trades and professions.  Visitors who crowd to Chicago neglect to see the homes of our citizens, being wholly absorbed and astonished by the wonderful buildings put up since the fire in the burnt district.  They should not fail to visit such streets as Prairie avenue, where the home-life of our citizens of means is laid.”

The images, beginning at upper left were as follows:

Louis Wahl residence, 2026 S. Prairie Ave.

Prairie Avenue looking southwest at 18^th Street

Edson Keith residence, 1906 S. Prairie Ave.

Charles M. Henderson residence, 1816 S. Prairie Ave.

Marshall Field residence, 1905 S. Prairie Ave.

Robert Law residence, 1620 S. Prairie Ave.

George M. Pullman residence, 1729 S. Prairie Ave.

 Dewey residence, 1730 S. Prairie Ave.

(center) Daniel M. Thompson residence, 1936 S. Prairie Ave.

All of the residences pictured have been demolished.  Two of the images are of particular interest.

The view of Prairie Avenue looking southwest at 18^th Street is the only known image showing the southwest corner of Prairie and 18^th prior to the construction of Glessner House in 1886-1887.  Just to the right of center in the illustration is a three-story double-house with Mansard roof, occupied by the Hitchcock and Galloway families.  John J. Glessner purchased the double-house in March 1885, selling off the south portion of the lot to Osborn R. Keith, and retaining the remaining 75 feet of frontage for construction of his own house.

The other image of interest is that of the George M. Pullman mansion.  Although construction on the house had begun in 1871, it was still under construction in 1874, and in fact would not be ready for occupancy by the Pullman family until early 1876.  Comparing the illustration with a photo of the finished house, one can see major elements missing including the front porch facing Prairie Avenue and the porte cochere facing 18^th Street, as well as the iron roof cresting and other finishing touches.

Other building activity during the year included a large $10,000 addition to the William G. Hibbard house at 1701 S. Prairie Ave.  The original house had been built in 1868 with William LeBaron Jenney as architect.  Jenney was also the architect of the addition, seen in the second photo above.  As the house was located on the east side of the street, the back porches faced directly onto Lake Michigan which was just beyond the Illinois Central Railroad tracks that bordered the back of the Hibbard lot.

The home of Daniel Shipman was constructed in 1874 at 1828 S. Prairie Ave.  William W. Boyington, best remembered today for his design of the Chicago Water Tower, was the architect of this house, designed in the predominant Second Empire style of the day.  An interesting editorial about Shipman was published in the Chicago Tribune shortly after his death in 1906.  Shipman made his fortune in the white lead industry, but he and his wife left no children to inherit his fortune.  As a result, his estate was converted into a trust from which the earnings were paid yearly to five charities:

-Illinois Schools of Agriculture and Manual Training for Boys

-Chicago Home for Incurables

-Chicago Old People’s Home

-Hahnemann Hospital of Chicago

-St. Luke’s Free Hospital

The Tribune noted in reporting the disposition of Shipman’s estate:

“In felicitating the five admirable charities which have profited so gratifyingly by Daniel B. Shipman’s will it is interesting to remember that the provisions to be carried out would not have been possible had Mr. Shipman accumulated a large family of children during his many years of married life.  If heaven had blessed him with four, five, or six boys there would be every reason to suppose that the boys who attend the Illinois Schools of Agriculture and Manual Training  would not be the gainers by the liberal endowment fund provided by the terms of the will.  So here is an instance where many boys are benefited in place of a few. . . Perhaps it is not an unworthy thought that Providence may have decreed this charitable distribution and that ofttimes marriages are childless in order that worthy charities may be the substantial gainers.” 

Allen's Academy in 1874

The second home of Allen's Academy, completed 1883

The Prairie Avenue neighborhood was home to a number of private schools to which the residents sent their children.  One of the largest and most prominent was Allen’s Academy for Boys which opened in 1874 in a building at Michigan Avenue and 22^nd Street.  The principal, Ira W. Allen, had previously served as the head of Lake Forest Academy.  In 1883, Allen engaged the services of architect Charles Chapman to design a much larger building which was located on the south side of 22^nd Street (now Cermak Road) east of Prairie Avenue.  The school closed upon Allen’s retirement in 1892.

One of the most prominent  and important houses on Prairie Avenue was designed in 1874 for John B. Sherman, vice president and manager of the Chicago Union Stock Yards.  Located at 2100 S. Prairie Avenue the house was designed by a new architectural firm in Chicago – Burnham and Root.  It was the second commission the young architects had received into their office, and it was crucially important.  During construction, Daniel Burnham became acquainted with Sherman’s daughter Margaret, and by the time the house was finished in 1876, they had wed and moved into the new house.  Sherman was one of Chicago’s most prominent businessmen, and he used his considerable influence to secure numerous commissions for his son-in-law’s architectural practice  from his Prairie Avenue neighbors and Stock Yards associates. 

The house broke away from the predominant Second Empire style of Prairie Avenue and featured Ruskinian Gothic details including a hipped roof punctuated by numerous dormers of various sizes and shapes, stone banding delineating the floor levels, and a decorative second level oriel window addressing the prominent corner site.  Louis Sullivan, not usually known for his praise of other architects’ works, wrote (in the first person) about the house in The Autobiography of an Idea:

“There, on the southwest corner of Prairie Avenue and Twenty-first Street, his eye was attracted by a residence, nearing completion, which seemed far better than the average run of such structures inasmuch as it exhibited a certain allure of style indicating personality.”