Renovations for the University Club of Chicago

Often times, the most significant commissions are not those that are the largest of those that cost the most money.  The work that Joseph Silsbee did for the University Club of Chicago, though modest in comparison with other works, may have been the most important in sustaining his career.

Silsbee was a founding member of the club in 1887 and was hired to design renovations to the third and fourth floors of the Henning & Speed Building for use as the Club headquarters.  The officers and founding members of the club consisted of prominent citizens, many of whom were graduates of eastern Ivy League Universities.  Several were Silsbee's classmates at Harvard.  As the club grew, it's membership list reads like a directory to Silsbee's residential clients.

In 1889, the club had outgrown it's initial space and purchased a building on Dearborn street to renovate for it's new clubhouse.  Again, Silsbee was hired to oversee the renovations and a large addition.  The building was the Hansen Building, designed in 1885 by architect John Addison.  Addison was a talented architect and his five-story brick and terra cotta office building seemed to be a perfect canvas for Silsbee to add to.            

Silsbee oversaw complete modifications of the interiors for the club's use.  On the exterior, he was responsible for a two-story and attic addition that dramatically changed the profile of the existing structure.  The addition is marked by two large intersecting gable roofs.  It is remarkable how Silsbee's addition almost seemlessly blends with Addison's structure.  Facing Dearborn street, the pilasters of the original structure are extended an additional story and capped with ornimantal terra cotta.  The bottom of this large gable is composed as an abstract over-sized Paladian window with a giant terra-cotta encrusted pediment at the top of the gable.  A flag pole extended from the center of this element.  An excellent image of this feature, with foliate elements intertwining the initials "U C", can be found in the archives of the Art Institute. 

In 1892, on the eve of the World's Columbian Exposition, Silsbee was hired once more to renovate the rooms, staircase and elevator to prepare the club for the numerous visitors that were expected for the World's Fair.  At this time, Silsbee also renovated the second floor of the club so it could be sublet to the Chicago Literary Club.  Silsbee and many other University Club members were also members of this club.  It began meeting in the University Club library, pictured below, a year before it made it's permanent home on the second floor.

It is in the meetings of the Literary Club where we get a rare glimpse of Silsbee's interest in architecture theories.  His close friendships with prominent club members Frederick Gookin and Joseph Kirkland are worth noting but more important is the fact that Silsbee delivered scholarly papers at the club.  Though they were never published, he presented papers on Color in Architecture and Back Yards.  The most interesting presentation would have been his contribution to a four-part series given by himself along with architects Irving Pond, Peter Wight and Louis Sullivan in 1895.  In this series, each architect pondered the question: "Can Architecture Become Again a Living Art?".  The Literary Club stayed in the University Club building until 1906 when it moved to the Orchestra Building in rooms designed by club member, Irving Pond.   

The most remarkable room in the University Club was the Banquet Hall.  This was a two-story space on the sixth floor.  It had a dramattic curved beam ceiling and the walls were decorated with the shields of the colleges represented by the club members.  At the time of the 1893 renovations, there were thirty-seven.

As with all of the rooms in the clubhouse, the room had elaborate woodwork and was richly decorated.  At the end of this room was an ornate balcony, where musicians could perform during club events.

In 1909, The University Club moved to its current clubhouse, the masterpiece of architect Martin Roche, on Michigan Ave.  The Dearborn Street clubhouse was sold to the Press Club of Chicago.  Silsbee was also a member of this club and it is due to the pride that the Press Club had in this building that we have the above images.  All of the images are from various club publications now found online.  The Press Club stayed in the building until it moved in 1915.  It moved back to the building in 1929, where is stayed until the club disbanded in 1939.  The entire block, which also contained Henry Cobb's Boyce Building, was demolished in the 1960's.        

Residence for Frederick Watson

In the late 1880's, J. L. Silsbee was very popular for a particular style of home and he designed many of them that are scattered around the country.  This was the Shingle Style "suburban villa".  Unlike those that he designed for clients in his home-city, Chicago, many of the homes that are located outside the city still survive.  I have already written about one of these, a home for Judge James Shaw.  Two more of these are in Dixon, Illinois; both built for very prominent citizens.  

In 1889, Silsbee was commissioned by shoe manufacturer Fred Watson to design a home along the Rock River.  The home features a long sweeping roof line punctuated by symmetrically arranged dormers.  The base of the home is a multi-colored face of "tapestry brick".  It is a modest yet beautifully sited home that, because of the sweeping roof line and brick work, seems to hug the earth.  Initially, the the ground floor of the home was open across the front, providing a long porch from which to view the river.  A later enclosing addition is conspicuous and denotes how difficult it is to match this complex brick at any point after a home's initial construction.     

The home originally was an L-shaped plan with a single wing extending to the back of the home.  A two-story garage addition as been added to this in recent years.   The roof line at the rear is irregular with porte-cochere, dormers and a small round window that pokes from the roof line.

Watson was a first-generation financial success, working his way up from a news boy on the railroad to owning the Watson-Plummer Shoe Company.  He became a prominent man in the community and was known nation-wide within the shoe and leather business.  He lived in this home most of his life, moving to Chicago in 1910 after the death of his wife.  He soon remarried but passed away himself in 1913.        

Home for James Shaw

Yesterday, I was asked to give architectural tours of a home in Polo, Illinois.  I like being able to introduce people to Silsbee's work first-hand and always enjoy being in north central Illinois in the fall.  Another thing I enjoy is looking at the numerous buildings designed by Silsbee and other prominent Chicago architects that dot the towns in this part of the state.  J. L. Silsbee alone has work in Polo, Dixon and Mount Carroll.   In the area, you can also find nice works by William Otis, Pond & Pond, Patton & Fisher and others.

In Mount Carroll, Silsbee designed a home for former Judge and Illinois Speaker of the House, James Shaw. It was built in 1889 and is a deceptively simple home.  It is Shingle Style with the first floor clad in clapboards and upper floor and roof originally in shingles.  All of the windows are punched openings with a simple frame but no discernible header or sill.   A simple curved lintel with attached columns frames the open entry porch and simple brackets are arranged around the eaves as an ornament.  The bracket arrangement is reminiscent of a motif he used on other buildings, particularly the Comfort Station he designed at Lincoln Park.

The massing of the home is simple.  The predominantly rectangular box of a home sits on a low stone base and is capped with a hipped roof.  It has an open porch and solarium on the south and large turret in the center of the home, on the north.  The Brackets and tongue & groove board at the eave continue around the turret in a radial pattern.

The hipped roof contains a third story and is punctuated by squat dormers.  The current roofing is not original but the molded copper finials at the crest are still intact.  The simplicity of the home is a stark contrast to the fine elaborate Italianate and Greek Revival structures that are found throughout the rest of the city.

The detailing on the home is also very simple yet elegant.  The upper story of shingles are cut so the appear to wrap the straight ninety degree corners of the home.  On the story below, the clapboard cladding is framed at the corners with wood trim in a U or C-shaped profile.  This same trim is used around the windows and at mid-height, where the clapboards meet the shingle.  At this same location, the home is encircled with a band of triangular shaped shingles.  The Shaw home is fine example of Silsbee's Shingle Style architecture and an example of the high-quality architect-designed structures found throughout rural Illinois.        

Speculative Home for Harvey B. Hurd

Harvey Hurd began developing property just northwest of the center of the Village of Evanston in 1889.  One of the first homes he constructed was designed by J. L. Silsbee.  This set the tone for subsequent large homes for Hurd and Hurd Family members, all designed by prominant architects including Dwight Perkins, Myron Hunt, George Maher, and Walter Burley Griffin.   

The home that Silsbee designed was Shingle Style, similar to those that he was completing in the Edgewater suburb, a few miles south of Hurd's development.  Some of the features that make the home unique are it's large-scale windows, recessed balcony at the side gable and what appears to have once been a turret over the porch entry.

Some ornament decorates a panel between the two windows at the front gable and some windows still have their 12 over 1 sash fenestration.  Another important feature on the home is an open "piazza" that extends across the front of it.  It is a feature seen on many of Silsbee's buildings.  He believed that covered verandas created a dark appearance and blocked natural light from entering the structure so he argued for open piazzas with a movable awnings.  These allowed for more natural light and air in the building.  The wall around the piazza in the Hurd home is clad in shingles and is designed so that the element to blend in with the overall building composition.    

A major alteration to the home is a two-story addition on the north side of the structure.  It was designed by architects Tallmadge & Watson. and put on in 1925.   The home is in very good condition and is a good example of Silsbee's Shingle Style work.