Competition Design for the Milwaukee Club

Some of an architect's best plans remain in that state, a mere depiction of ink on paper or linen.  In 1883, Joseph Silsbee's Chicago office, Silsbee & Kent, was invited to submit a design for a competition for the commission of a new clubhouse for the Milwaukee Club.  Other architects that were invited included pioneering Chicago architects Burnham & Root and future Milwaukee City Hall designer and talented architect Henry C. Koch but it was club member Edward Townsend Mix that would win the competition.  With such a talented pool of architects and being a relative unknown in the Midwest, it seemed that it would be an uphill battle for Silsbee to win such a commission.

A consolation to not winning the competition was the exposure that the competition gave to Silsbee.  An image of the firm's highly refined Queen Anne design appeared in the national journal, American Architect and Building News.  The depiction shows a building complete with details and motifs that are found on the Queen Anne residences that Silsbee designed yet executed at an urban scale.  As in other works, it also shows Silsbee's continued fascination with architectural design trends that were spreading from England, particularly by the work of architect Richard Norman Shaw.  Silsbee may have seen Shaw's work firsthand while traveling in Europe but it also would have been familiar as it was widely published at the time.  

Silsbee & Kent's building would have been constructed with a first story of Connecticut brownstone and upper stories made with red pressed brick.  The bays were to be clad in wood and the roof tile.  The interiors would have been a richly decorated array of billiards, banquet and reading rooms organized around a large central stair hall.  A large entry porch, roof decks and decorative iron balcony introduced exterior spaces adjacent to almost all of the interior gathering rooms.  

Photograph of Milwaukee Club, Edward Townsend Mix, Architect.  Photo by James Steakley

Evidence of each of the competition entries does not exist but it is likely that they were all designed in the Queen Anne idiom.  Silsbee's entry shares some of the features of the completed building including the central entry and details like the bay window and side balcony.  This similarity may be due to a set program given by the client or it could be that desirable elements from other entries were incorporated into the final design.  What separates Silsbee's work from the winning design is the overall variety of windows and other architectural elements and the level of refinement and attention of detail given to those elements and their incorporation into a cohesive design.  Had it been built, it may have opened a new chapter on Silsbee's career in a new city and would stand as a testament to Silsbee's remarkable talent as a designer.                

Lincoln Park Comfort Station

I have always found it ironic that some of Silsbee's smallest and seemingly least significant works are the ones that received the most attention.  Perhaps it is because the more significant buildings have succumbed to the wrecking ball or maybe this has some deeper insight into the values of architectural historians.

One of these modest gems is a cottage that Silsbee designed for Lincoln Park.  It was commissioned in 1888 and served as toilet facilities for the park and nearby zoo.  A rendering of the project that appeared in the local construction journal, the Building Budget, was prepared by Prairie School architect George Maher.   

The structure is exquisitely detailed with pressed brick, rounded at the corners, with large boulders as a primary wall material, capped with a widely flared hipped roof.  The materials and expression of the structure have the same refined articulation that can be found in homes of the same period that Silsbee's office was designing in the Buena Park and Edgewater neighborhoods of Chicago. 

The Lincoln Park Cottage, with its unique character, set the tone for other park structures that were to follow. The materials and entry configuration were echoed in Silsbee's design for the Lincoln Park Conservatory as well as the park offices located at the rear of the Conservatory. 

The wide eaves and low-slung character of the structure were also repeated by Silsbee when he was called upon to design subsequent structures for the Lincoln Park Zoo.  

The structure is a Chicago Landmark, possibly the greatest distinction and protection given to any of Silsbee's structures anywhere.  It was lovingly restored two years ago and is currently used as a volunteer coordinator's office for the park's gardens.   

Speculative Home for Edward B. Smith

In 1886, real estate developer, Edward B. Smith commissioned Silsbee's Buffalo firm, Silsbee & Marling, to design at least two homes for sale on Linwood Avenue.  This is one of them.  For the next several years, Silsbee and his successor firm, Marling & Burdette continued work on the street for Smith as well as other individual clients.  As it exists today, the street is a very fine collection of mid 1880's Shingle Style homes, epitomizing the style that Silsbee is commonly associated with. 

Speculative Home at Edgewater for J. L. Cochran

From 1886 to 1890, J. L. Silsbee was engaged by real estate developer, John Lewis Cochran, to design homes and other community structures for his Edgewater development.  Silsbee's first structures, all in the shingle style, set the tone for development in the community as well as a high expectation for quality designed and constructed homes for the communities surrounding the city of Chicago.  By the end of his tenure with Cochran, Silsbee had designed over 20 buildings for the community, including his own home that once stood on Hollywood Avenue.        

In 1890, local newspapers and architectural journals announced that Cochran was building two new homes and a train station to Silsbee's designs.  In 2006, local historian LeRoy Blommaert alerted me that he had located one of these homes and that it would soon be slated for demolition.  An account of his research and our visit to the home can be read on the Edgewater Historical Society website see their Summer 2006 issue for the article. 

The home had a brick first story and a second story clad in either stucco or shingles.  The photos depict a modern stucco application.  The structure had several additions over the years.  The most notable was a large mid-century three-story structure that obscured the entire front of the home.  The Edgewater homes designed by Silsbee, with modern conveniences and complex architectural detailing, were the finest shingle style structures to grace the Chicago streets.  Draftsmen in his office that worked on these homes included future Oak Park architects Henry Fiddelke and Frank Lloyd Wright.