The James Charnley House (later known as the Charnley–Persky House) is a learned society headquarters and historic house museum at 1365 North Astor Street, along the Gold Coast, in the Near North Side of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright of Adler & Sullivan, it was completed in 1892 for the lumber magnate James Charnley. The house is one of Sullivan's few residential works and one of the only buildings where both Sullivan and Wright were significantly involved in the design. It is owned by the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), which operates the Charnley–Persky House Museum and uses the building as a headquarters. The Charnley–Persky House is designated as a Chicago landmark and a National Historic Landmark.
Charnley bought the site in 1890 and hired Sullivan, a family friend, to design the house. Construction began in July 1891, and the Charnley family moved into the house in May 1892, living there for ten years. Several families bought it in succession during the 20th century. The house was expanded in the mid-1920s and remained a residence until 1986, when the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) restored the house's original appearance and converted it into the headquarters of the SOM Foundation. The philanthropist Seymour Persky purchased the house in 1995 and donated it to the SAH, which renamed it Charnley–Persky House in his honor.
The Charnley–Persky House has three stories and a basement with a facade of Roman brick and stone. The facade on Astor Street is divided vertically into three parts: a main entrance with a balcony loggia in the center, and brick pavilions on either side. The third story is separated from the lower stories by a limestone course. The interior of the house has decorative woodwork throughout, with built-in bookcases and fireplaces. The first story contains a living room and a dining room, which flank a three-story stair hall at the center. The second and third stories contain bedrooms, and there were originally servants' quarters on the third story as well. In addition, the basement includes utilitarian spaces like a butler's pantry, storage space, and a laundry room.
Site The Charnley House is located along the Gold Coast, a subsection of the Near North Side neighborhood of Chicago in Illinois, United States. The building carries the street address 1365 North Astor Street (originally 99 Astor Street), at the southeast corner with Schiller Street. The site measures long on Astor Street to the west and long on Schiller Street to the north. Because Astor Street runs at an angle to Chicago's street grid, the site is parallelogram in shape. The house itself measures about across. There is a courtyard to the south, measuring across, and a driveway to the east of both the house and the courtyard, measuring . The Palmer Mansion once existed on the same city block to the east.
The building stands on reclaimed land one block from the western shore of Lake Michigan and two blocks south of Lincoln Park. The area north of Oak Street, including the Charnley site, was sandy marshland through the 1870s. The businessman Potter Palmer acquired the Charnley site and several adjacent lakefront parcels from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago starting in the late 1870s, with plans to redevelop the land as an upscale residential district. Palmer received permission to reclaim land from Lake Michigan in 1882. Some of the reclaimed land became Palmer Court, a site bounded by Astor Street to the west, Schiller Street to the north, and Banks Street to the south. Palmer sold off the western section of Palmer Court to property owners, including James Charnley, a businessman from a wealthy Philadelphia family.
History The house is named for James Charnley, who moved to Chicago in 1866 and cofounded the lumber firm Bradner, Charnley & Co. with two family members. Charnley moved to a new residence approximately every other year. He married Helen Douglas, the daughter of Illinois Central Railroad president John Douglas, in October 1872. Over the following decade, Charnley founded several more firms. The family hired the firm of Burnham and Root in 1882 to design a house on Lake Shore Drive. That house, with wide porches facing Lake Michigan, was poorly suited to Chicago's cold winters and ultimately was razed in 1913. James, Helen, and their son Douglas had moved several times by the 1890s.
Charnley ownership
Development In July 1890, the Charnley family bought a site at the southeast corner of Astor and Schiller streets for $27,500 (). The site originally measured across. Unlike many of their neighbors, who built detached houses in the middle of their properties, the Charnleys wanted to sell off their land to encourage higher-density development. Shortly after acquiring the land, the family sold part of the site to the Otis family. The Otis tract, measuring wide, was immediately east of where the Charnleys' house was to be built. The Charnleys subsequently sold the easternmost of their land, east of the Otis tract, to two other families, earning $27,450 () from these sales. Having sold off 80% of their land, the Charnley family retained only the corner plot, which represented a net expenditure of $50 ().
The Charnleys hired Louis Sullivan—a family friend who, along with Dankmar Adler, was a partner in the architectural firm of Adler & Sullivan—to design their Astor Street house. Sullivan had previously designed adjacent vacation homes for the Charnleys and himself in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. At the time of the Charnley House's construction, the block had a malt house, some apartment buildings, and some one- or two-family houses. Sullivan was concurrently busy designing the World's Columbian Exposition on Chicago's South Side and the Chicago Stock Exchange Building. As such, he delegated much of the design work to Adler & Sullivan draftsman Frank Lloyd Wright, who sketched out the plans at his house in Oak Park, Illinois. Wright, who at the time typically worked on details for Sullivan's drawings, later attributed the design for the Charnleys' Chicago house entirely to himself. Wright claimed that, during his tenure at Adler & Sullivan (which lasted between 1888 and 1893), neither Sullivan nor Adler built residences.
Adler & Sullivan had prepared plans for a Romanesque Revival residence at Astor and Schiller streets by June 1891; the cost was estimated at $25,000 (). Work began that July, and the facade was finished by November. The Charnleys also received the Otis family's permission in November 1891 to construct a party wall between their respective properties.
Usage and sale The house was completed in May 1892, and the Charnley family lived there for about a decade. The family employed two full-time maids (who had their own bedrooms) and periodically hired other servants as well. From the outset, the house was equipped with utilities such as electricity, which meant the Charnleys did not need a large staff, as was the case with older mansions. Though the Charnley family was prominent enough to be included in Chicago's Blue Book of Selected Names—a list of the city's wealthy residents—they kept a low profile. The family seldom entertained more than a few visitors, and few diary entries, letters, or photographs, or original decorations from the house's early years are known to exist.
Due to the limited space available, James and Helen Charnley may have shared one of the second-floor bedrooms, while Helen's brother John used the other second-floor bedroom. Douglas and one of his friends probably shared the third-floor bedroom. Douglas Charnley moved back into the house after graduating from Yale University in 1896, and Charnley's nephew James Charnley Jr. is also recorded as having lived there. The 1900 United States census cites James, Helen, and Douglas Charnley and John Douglas as living there, along with a lumber dealer and two female servants from Sweden. After being diagnosed with a kidney disease, James sold off his companies, retired, and moved to Camden, South Carolina, with Helen in 1902. Douglas Charnley also left the house around that time, moving to various countries.
After moving out, the Charnley family continued to own the building for a decade, renting it to various people, including other members of Chicago's elite. The businessman Joseph Winterbotham and his wife are recorded as having moved into the house by September 1901, living there for two years. The next residents, Ogden Trevor McClurg and his wife, moved into the house in August 1903 and also lived there for two years. Redmond D. Stephens and his wife leased the house in November 1905 after the McClurgs moved out. Stephens bought the house outright in 1911 for $24,000 (), and the Stephens family continued to live there until 1918. By then, the house carried the address 1365 Astor Street.
Later residential use
Waller ownership The Charnley House was purchased in August 1918 by real estate investor James Breckinridge Waller Jr., whose family would own it for half a century. James Waller Jr. already owned the land to the east, which had previously been part of the Charnley family's holdings. Waller Jr. may have purchased the house with the intention of eventually redeveloping the site, though a contemporary Chicago Daily Tribune article did not report on the existence of any such plans. Waller Jr. died at the house in August 1920 and bequeathed the Astor Street house and the adjacent vacant land to his son James B. Waller III. The younger Waller bought a site to the east in 1925 or 1926, adjoining the Binderton Apartments, for $35,000 (). Waller III likely considered redeveloping the Binderton Apartments and the Charnley House, but these plans were canceled after the Wall Street crash of 1929.
James Waller III built a southern annex to the house in 1926; the annex's facade was designed in a similar style to the original house. The southern extension included a kitchen on the first floor, three additional bedrooms on the top two floors, and porches on the first and second floors. In addition, the third-story servant rooms and the bathrooms were modified, part of the adjacent vacant lot was converted into a courtyard, and a door was added to the eastern wall. The fireplaces were boarded up during World War II to conserve energy. James III lived in the house until his death in 1949. His widow Nettie Waller retained the residence, putting her efforts into preserving the property at a time when many of Chicago's homes were being redeveloped. Nettie told the Chicago Tribune in 1966 that the surrounding area was "the best neighborhood in the city" and that she did not know where she would relocate if she were to sell the house. By then, the house had garnered large amounts of attention from visitors, including architects and students, and Nettie no longer was surprised when people tried to enter.
Smith and Wohlfeil ownership
Nettie sold the house in 1969. The Charnley House's subsequent owner—Hawley L. Smith Jr., who also owned four nearby residences on Schiller Street—spent $50,000 renovating the building and renting it to tenants. By the 1970s, the house's owner planned to construct condominiums east of the house. The Charnley House would have been subdivided, becoming an entryway for the condominium building. This prompted the architect John Vinci to begin looking for someone to buy the house from the developers. The house hosted an interior-design exhibit during 1975. Though the house had been placed for sale by the late 1970s, few people expressed interest in acquiring it.