James Charnley House

James Charnley House
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Chicago Landmark
The original symmetrical facade as it appeared in 1892 - the adjacent building was later demolished
Location	1365 N. Astor Street, Chicago, Illinois
Coordinates	41°54′27.54″N 87°37′39.67″W / 41.9076500°N 87.6276861°WCoordinates: 41°54′27.54″N 87°37′39.67″W / 41.9076500°N 87.6276861°W
Built	1892[1]
Architect	Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright
NRHP Reference #	70000232[2]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	April 17, 1970[2]
Designated NHL	August 6, 1998[3]
Designated CL	August 20, 1972[4]

An additional bay was added on the right side after the demolition of the adjacent building

The James Charnley Residence is located in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood, in the 1300 block of North Astor Street. The house is now called the Charnley–Persky House and is operated as a museum and organization headquarters by The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH).^[5] An Adler & Sullivan design, the townhouse is the work of Louis Sullivan and a young Frank Lloyd Wright, who was a junior draftsman in Sullivan's office at the time.^[1] The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

The house was completed in 1892 for Charnley, a Chicago lumberman who lived in the house with his family for about a decade.^[5] The building was later owned by members of the Waller family, who invested in real estate. The house was purchased by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in 1986 and subsequently restored.^[1] Seymour Persky purchased the house in 1995 and donated it to the SAH who renamed the building to the Charnley–Persky House to honor their benefactor.^[5]

The plain brick facade with simple ornamentation was quite different from other houses on the Gold Coast, but the interior is distinguished by rich ornamentation that is typical of Sullivan's work.^[1]

References

1. Wolfe, Gerard R. (1996). Chicago: In and Around the Loop. New York, New York: McGraw=Hill. pp. 404–406. ISBN 0-07-071390-1.
2. Staff (2006-03-15). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
3. "James Charnley House". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved 2007-10-13.
4. "Charnley House". City of Chicago Dept. of Pl. and Devpmt., Landmarks Div. 2003. Retrieved 2007-08-04.
5. "Charnley–Persky House History". Charnley–Persky House Museum Website. Charnley–Persky House Museum Foundation. 2004-06-14. Retrieved 2012-06-03.

• First and second floor plan
• Historic American Buildings Survey HABS ILL,16-CHIG,12-
• Richard Longstreth (ed.) 2004. The Charnley House: Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Making of Chicago's Gold Coast, University of Chicago Press, 249 pages

External links

• Charnley House Website
• A site about the James Charnley House