Homes for Egbert and Malcolm Jamieson

By the mid-1880's it was becoming more and more common for Chicago's upper class to abandon the idea of living in a large stone or brick mansion along a fashionable urban boulevard for an alternate frame home in a more rural-looking setting. The homes that J. L. Silsbee was designing for suburban areas at Buena Park and Edgewater, with their seemingly informal planning and artful combination of English cottage and Colonial elements made the architect particularly popular with clients seeking out homes with a more pastoral appearance.               

Postcard from John Chuckman Collection: West on Stratford Pl. near Lake Michigan, Chicago, IL (1913)

It is in this context that the first homes on Stratford Place (at that time called Newport Avenue) were constructed. One of the earliest of these was a Dutch Colonial home for Judge Egbert Jamieson. Jamieson's home was soon followed by the construction of a shingle style home under the direction of Adler & Sullivan for George Harvey. It was built on a lot directly to the west of Jamieson's home. A year after Egbert Jamieson's home was completed, Silsbee was at work on a home for Egbert's brother, Malcom Jamieson. Malcom's home was an English cottage-styled structure and built just east of the judge's residence. The three homes set the tone and appearance of the street for the next couple of decades. A postcard from 1913 captures what thes three homes looked like. Malcom Jamieson's home is in the foreground, Judge Jamieson's is next and the Harvey home is just beyond that. All of these homes are now gone and a history of the street is captured in the blog: Lake View Historical Chronicles.

The initial connection between Silsbee and the Jamieson family is not known but given the dual comissions, it can be assumed that he was somewhat close with at least Judge Jamieson but perhaps with both of the brothers. The Jamiesons were Vermont natives who came to Wisconson and then Chicago at young ages. Malcom was a banker and had his own firm, Morse, Jamieson & Co. Judge Jamieson started out as a typesetter and then lawyer. He was appointed to the Superior Court of Cook County in 1886 and served there four years. After stepping down from the court, he became legal council for the North and West Chicago Street Railway Companies. He also served on the Lincoln Park Comission. Silsbee did work for the street railway companies and was one of the favored architects by the Comission while Jamieson was on it.    

Judge Egbert Jamieson (1840-1912)

Judge Jamieson's home is not unique for Silsbee's work in this period and it is one of four known Dutch Colonial homes that he designed in 1888. There are a handful of unique features of in this particular design though. One is the incorporation of two discrete, almost complete, circle-rooms in the design. One is part of the sweeping front porch that stretches completely across the front of the home and wraps around the east side. From here you would have had a remarkable view of the lake, that was only a block away. Another circular room was situated on the northeast corner of the home and served as the judge's library.

Egbert Jamieson's home in 1892 from publication, Chicago and Its Resources Twenty Years After 1871-1891

Completed a year earlier, the Arthur Orr Residence, still standing in Evanston, IL, has many similar elements. A massive rubble-stone base, clapboard and shingle exterior and massive round porches. All of these elements seem to be neatly organized beneath a sweeping gambrel roof. The roof surface faces the street and has a generally horizontal expression along that facade.

Arthur Orr Residence (1887-88), J. L. Silsbee, architect

Silsbee's design approach a couple years later, for Malcolm's home, is quite different. The long sweeping porch that extends across the front in the judge's home is still present here but in this home, at least from what you can discern by the piece that you can see in the postcard image, the roofline is much more varied and the overall organization and massing more complex. It too has a massive stone base but instead of favoring Colonial detailing, the details on the home are articulated in an English Gothic style. Incidentally, stone mason, John Monaghan, was responsible for the complex stone work on both Jamieson homes, the Orr home, as well as Silsbee's Lincoln Park Conservatory.  

Detail of Malcolm Jamieson Residence from John Chuckman postcard.

The Jamieson homes seem to evidence how Silsbee was at the forefront of residential design in this period and how he influenced residential design executing some of the earliest shingle style and Colonial homes along the shore, north of Chicago. In many ways, these early structures set the tone for structures that followed the few years after. The development of Stratford Place mirrors development that was occurring a block south, on Hawthorn Place and with buildings by Sullivan, Root, Maher, and others, the two streets have a rich history of architectural patronage, particularly in how they exhibit how each firm was executing homes in the shingle style. It is during this period that Silsbee also completed his Herman Hettler residence on that street on Hawthorn Place. As as architects, Silsbee in particular, they had obviously tapped into a particular desires of affluent clientele for a particular kind of home; one with a decidedly horizontal and weighty expression and one that was constructed with an eye to using wood construction in an inventive manner.

Herman Hettler Residence on Hawthorn Place (1892), J. L. Silsbee, architect

The number of Silsbee works in this area is evidence of how he was influencing the appearance of these suburban-looking dwellings. His work on similar designs for a large number of homes in nearby Buena Park and in the Edgewater suburb shows how popular his brand of shingle style dwelling was at the time. Silsbee's influence on the residential character of these early neighborhoods also comes from the fact that some of the architects that were executing works, were once in Silsbee's office. Sullivan's office had just taken on Frank Lloyd Wright and George Elmslie when design on the Harvey home was starting. A more profound influence can be seen in George Maher's work. Maher's Albert Towers home, commissioned in 1893, was constructed directly across the street from Malcolm Jamieson's home on Stratford. Maher was in Silsbee's office when Judge Jamieson's and Arthur Orr's homes were planned. He would have experienced, first-hand, the design of homes like these. It is no a surprise that Maher executes a design that, with its massive stone base, huge rounded porch and large gambrel roof, provides precisely the same domestic impression as Silsbee's work in the area.          

Albert Towers Residence (1893-94), G. W. Maher, architect

Home for George Howard

If Joseph Silsbee was such a good architect and so popular in his day, then why isn't he better known today?  This is a question I typically get when I reveal my obsession about Silsbee.  The answer is two-fold but simple.  First: people don't know his work because the best and vast majority of it is gone.  Second: Frank Lloyd Wright.  I'll save my diatribe about how people's adoration of America's greatest architect blinds them from seeing and appreciating the vast list of other great American designers for another entry.  People's general knowledge of architecture in America is limited but even for people that are architecture "fans", Silsbee is an obscure figure.  For this post I'd like to talk about a little known, yet spectacular, home that once stood in Buffalo, N. Y.  I believe that if it and more homes like it were still standing, then the appraisal of Silsbee's work might be different.

It is important to note that Silsbee's Buffalo office was open for about 5 years, between 1882 ad 1887 and that he was responsible for over thirty known buildings in that city.  A majority of these commissions were homes that dotted the affluent tree-lined streets of North Street, Delaware Avenue and Linwood Avenue.  In all, seven known buildings are still standing.  The survival rate is not so good but in Buffalo, it is better than other cities where he practiced.  Chicago only has a couple dozen of the hundreds of structures he designed there and though a two of his finest office buildings are still standing in Syracuse, his work has fared even worse there.

With little fanfare, after a small fire in 1932, demolition began on the George Howard Residence; an immense home standing at the corner of Elmwood Avenue and Summer Streets in Buffalo.  The owner stated that the home had to come down as she did not want to incur the cost of taxes that would be incurred for rehabilitating the structure.  Long before the cries of preservationists, many of these great homes came down this way.  Where this home stood, a sea of parking now surrounds a small mini-mart building currently used as a pizzeria.  The landscapes around the sites of many of these homes is so completely altered that the memory of the homes is erased.

When it was initially constructed, George Rumsey Howard's Mansion received a lot of press.  It was widely published in architectural journals and local papers.  It is because of this that we can piece together quite a bit about the house.  Howard was a local banker.  He made his money in his family's leather tanning business and after selling his interests there, moved on to the Erie County Savings Bank.  He was the son of an early Buffalo patron and entrepreneur, George R. Howard.  The elder Howard had a home on the same block north on Delaware Avenue and had property that extended from Delaware, several blocks west to Richmond Avenue.  It was through an agreement with him that Buffalo had its first permanent baseball stadium; on the family property at Richmond.

Construction on the home began in 1887, a year after George R. Howard's death.  This also marked the beginning of the partitioning of the Howard property that allowed Summer Street to develop into an affluent residential street.  The circumstances of Howard hiring Silsbee are critical and hint at his desirability as an architect.  1887 was the year that Silsbee and his partner, James Marling, severed their partnership.  More specifically, it appears that the partnership was severed in March of that year.  All building citations for work prior to March note "Silsbee & Marling" as the designing firm.  In early March, the firm won a competition for a Tennis Club in the city.  By the end of the month, newspaper accounts of the progress of design and construction only mention Marling and subsequent commissions begin to appear in publications with Marling's name alone.  Except that in July an announcement in a local building journal notes that Joseph L. Silsbee of Chicago will be the architect of a new home for George Howard.

Howard would have been no stranger to Silsbee or his work.  His family was a member of the Silsbee-designed Falconwood Club and Howard was close friends with the tight circle of clients that had previously hired Silsbee and Silsbee & Marling to design their homes.  It is possible that Howard wanted Silsbee as his architect as a symbol of status; there may have been some cache to hiring an architect from a larger city and symbolic to have an architect who was responsible for the design of so many affluent homes.  It may also be that Howard and Silsbee had a social connection.  We may never know the reason why he was chosen but by choosing Silsbee as his architect, it was clear that Howard favored his work over that Marling.  

The illustration that appears a year later in the Building Budget (note that the image is reversed to reflect the home's actual appearance, as constructed) depicts, in Silsbee's fluid rendering style, a large home of shingles and brick with a prominent tower, terra cotta ornament, and a profusion of porches and balconies.  It stands with a very select group of his homes that can be considered a "mansion".  Though more commonly referred to as a "suburban villa" in its day, these were massive custom-designed residences built for a specific client.  That said, it is typical Silsbee; a combination of known stylistic elements composed in an artful and picturesque manner.  Though they are competent and beautiful structures, subsequent homes by Marling are generally simple and more strictly monumental.  Marling's work after he leaves Silsbee fails to include the level of complexity in spatial organization or ornamental program that can be seen in the Howard home.  It may be possible that this difference in design style and aesthetics was apparent to discerning clients and was a reason why Silsbee was sought out by Howard instead of his former partner.

When Silsbee was hired for a house design, it was apparent that two key programmatic issues were at play.  On one hand, the home was to have a substantial yet commodious appearance.  Secondly, it had to be built for the purposes of entertaining and impressing guests.  In its day, the style of the Howard home would likely have been readily recognizable as Silsbee's but more importantly, it was seen as fashionable and novel.  Silsbee built his reputation in Syracuse by breaking from the Greek Revival and Italianate norm, introducing the Queen Anne style to that City.  Years later, he does the same, making his mark in Chicago with the Shingle Style at his Edgwater development.  This home, with it's combination of Queen Anne, Shingle Style and Romanesque forms, can be seen as an attempt to capture the latest craze in design aesthetics, an affinity for the work of well-known architect, H. H. Richardson, while providing enough non-Richardson elements to make it unique.

The interior arrangement of the home is also organized with these ideas in mind.  Guests were typically received from the Porte-cochere through a small Vestibule and into an immense open Hall.  Like many of Silsbee's homes, the Hall is the center of the home with a series of entertaining spaces that seem to radiate from it.  All of the rooms were connected to the main hall with a series of generous openings that could be closed off with pocket doors to create more intimate gathering areas.  The Howard Home had a large fireplace with an inglenook arrangement at the base of a three-story staircase.  The staircase was open three stories.  At the second story, a massive triple-window topped with a Palladian window, that can be seen on the outside west-side of the building, bathed the staircase in natural light.  Another dormer at the third floor provided additional light to the staircase at that level.  As entertaining took place on all floors of the home, the staircase was a central design feature likely composed of elaborate carving.  Though no information exists about the interior decoration of the home, it is very likely that it contained an array of mosaic and tile, wood carving, and art glass to further showcase the wealth and fashionable taste of the owner.  It took approximately two years to complete construction and the interior was without a doubt remarkable.                    

A further note on why Silsbee's homes were different and perhaps more fashionable or pleasing than those by his contemporaries can also be seen by comparing the Howard home to a home of the same general style and composition that was built a year later in Syracuse, N.Y.   Architect Charles Colton's Charles Saul Residence was located on James Street in Syracuse.  It is slightly smaller than Howard's but the program, location, and social standing of the owner were all similar.  It is also a good comparison because Colton, the designer of Syracuse's City Hall, was very gifted and likely the best architect the city had since Silsbee. The homes have many obvious similarities that can't be explained.   We assume, because of local newspaper accounts, that Howard's was designed first.  It is certain that Colton and Silsbee knew one another and each other's work. Whether or not they would have borrowed design ideas from each other can't be established.  It may even be possible that there was yet a third home that was the template for both of these.    

Both homes have a two-story bay that terminates in a tower.  Both towers are punctuated by a dormer that interrupts the roof line and both have a sort of clear story that wraps the floor directly below the eaves at the top of the tower.  The Porte-cochere and entry arrangement are similar as is the corner turret and open porch arrangement on the opposite side of the building from the porte-cochere.  The resemblance is striking but there are also some stark differences.  In a slightly smaller building on a site with varied topography, Colton seems to favor the verticality that the composition allows for.  The building elements are arranged as a series of stacked components that break down into smaller components on upper floors as towers and dormers at that level seem to pierce the sky.  In the level topography of the Buffalo site, Silsbee seems to favor a more broad or "grounded" horizontal composition.  The tower is unbroken by banding, is more robust and acts as an anchoring element.  The porches and balconies seem to extend the building and its interior spaces horizontally instead of vertically.  With the elimination of a lot of exterior details like balustrades, multiple roof and gable-heights and odd-shaped windows, the Howard home also seems to have an overall "cleaner" look.  I believe that this overall refined character would have been one consideration that gave Silsbee's work broad appeal in the 1880's. 

It is no secret that Silsbee, with his strong family ties and reputation, continued to earn commissions in Syracuse, N. Y. long after he established a new home in Chicago.  It is lesser known that a similar legacy can be seen in Buffalo.  The Howard home was not the last home that he designed in that city after the break from partnership with Marling.  He did at least one more known work several years later.  Though he never lived in that city, it is apparent that he enjoyed a broad reputation for his fine work and was regularly sought out by clients there.  Sadly, since many of these homes are gone and scant evidence exists about them, Silsbee rarely comes to mind when architects of this period are considered for their broad national appeal and influence.  

Home for Frederick Greeley

You don't need to look very long and hard at Joseph Silsbee's homes to see that the exhibit a great breadth of style and expression.  Within the Shingle Style alone, Silsbee's work spans a spectrum from buildings with Queen Anne Influence, Gothic Cottage, or as this home illustrates, Colonial Revival. This Dutch Colonial home was designed for surveyor, Frederick Greeley and still stands in an enclave of beautiful Shingle Style homes landscaped by O. C. Simonds.     

The variety of expression in the homes can be attributed to Silsbee's own design talent and his willingness to openly experiment with design motifs from almost any period of architectural history. Another reason for this breadth of expression can be attributed to the immense talent of the draftsmen he employed in his office.  The illustration of the home above was drawn by architect Henry Fiddelke. Fiddelke would go on to become a prolific Oak Park architect who, like his former employer, had no problem designing a wide variety of homes in a myriad of styles.            

The Greeley Home has been significantly altered but retains it's overall building form.  The modesty depicted in Fiddelke's drawing is deceptive, as is a view of the home from the street.  At first glance, it seems like a simple box-like home under a large gambrel roof.  With the exception of an over-sized arched window at the staircase, it seems to have little or no additional articulation.  The drawing also doesn't seem to accurately depict the home's large size, with living quarters planned on three stories.  The view from the lake-side of the building reveals some of the home's complexity.  A broad porch  extends east from the recess at the southeast corner of the home creating a distinct promontory.  The lake-side also has interesting features like the paired dormers at the center of the roof.  A two story bay on the opposite end of the home provides additional articulation on this facade further establishing its relation to the lake.

The years around 1888, when this home was designed, were some of the most prolific in Silsbee's office.  There are points in time when particular architects seemed to have a sort of magic happening in their offices.  This aptly describes Silsbee's office in the late 1880's.  One can only imagine what it would have been like to see Silsbee's Chicago office with a slate of employees including Elbert Wilcox, DeWitt Kennard, George Maher, George Elmslie, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Fiddelke and Harry Hale Waterman, to name a few.  Meanwhile, a similarly talented array of architects were working under Silsbee in his Buffalo office at precisely the same time.  One can only guess at what each of these designers brought to the buildings built in this period but it is certain that they each brought a unique flavor that only added to Silsbee's already creative designs.  

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.   

The Henry B. Stone Residence

A large concentration of Silsbee's Chicago work once stood in a neighborhood now known as the Gold Coast.  Relatively few of his homes there survive.  One of them is the Henry Stone Residence, built in 1887.  It is a Romanesque townhome typical of the type of homes he designed in the vicinity.  It has nicely carved copper downspouts and wrought iron work as well as carved stone detailing.  A common feature of many Silsbee residences that can be seen in this home is the bay is topped with an arched recessed balcony.    

The Chicago Telephone Building

In 1888, Silsbee designed a building for the Chicago Telephone Company.  Now demolished, it housed offices for the company, control and switch rooms, and telephone apparatus. Joseph Silsbee is not the first architect that comes to mind when you think of the design of Chicago office buildings.  He is more commonly discussed in relation to the homes he designed, particularly those that he did while Frank Lloyd Wright and George Maher were employed in his office. 

Stylistically, the building is a departure from the Gothic structures he designed about a decade earlier in Syracuse, NY but the quality of design and attention to detail are the same. It was a seven-story iron structure with interior decorative ironwork clad in brick and terra cotta.  The building had Romanesque and Queen Anne elements and a clarity of design that can easily be compared with the finest buildings designed at the same time by Sullivan, Root, and others. A drawing of the building appeared in the local building journal, the Building Budget, and was signed by Geo. W. Maher.