User:Buster7/Sandbox-Geo. W. Maher

George Washington Maher (1864-1926) was an active member of the architectural community in and around Chicago at the turn of the century. He was a member of the Chicago Architectural Club and a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He was an advocate of the Prairie School, a new indigenous style of architecture developed by Frank Lloyd Wright incorporating Wrights' unique vision for urban planning in the United States.
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Beginnings in Edgewater

A lecture,“Originality in American Architecture,” to the Chicago Architectural Sketch Club by Henry Hobson Richardson.

George Maher also was introduced to Silsbee’s work in Edgewater on Chicago’s north side that J. Lewis Cochran was developing as a projected “model suburb” named for its lakefront location. In late 1888 the Sanitary News reported that Maher, “a well-known Chicago draughtsman, has gone into the practice of architecture, opening an office at 823 Insurance Exchange.” ((32)) Occasionally he collaborated with Cecil Corwin between 1889 and 1892, and they shared offices at 218 La Salle between 1890 and 1892. ((33)) Maher’s jobs were in Hyde Park during this period; he lived with his parents in Woodlawn Park in a Colonial Revival house of his own design. ((34))

Around the spring of 1893, Maher began working in Edgewater on his own, initially for J. Lewis Cochran and later receiving commissions directly. He erected more than 20 buildings in Edgewater from the spring of 1893 until 1916. They ranged from modest frame houses to large mansions like the Edwin M. Colvin House, 5940 Sheridan (1909; designated a Chicago Landmark, October 5, 1994) and the Adolph Schmidt House, 6331 Sheridan (1916). Maher worked for John C. Scales who developed Chicago’s Kenesaw Terrace, renamed Hutchinson Street (now the Hutchinson Street District, 1894 - 1918, designated a Chicago Landmark, August 31, 1977). Maher’s first of five houses on Hutchinson Street, the Scales House, was related in form and design to early houses he was designing for Cochran in Edgewater. Scales’ s house, 640 Hutchinson, and a house for J. MacMeans on Kenmore in Edgewater (demolished) featured big boulders at the foundations with irregular massing, high-pitched roofs, squat towers, and half timbering. ((35))

Kenilworth (1890)

In the early 1890s, Maher also began to design houses in Kenilworth, Illinois, the North Shore suburb that Joseph Sears and the Kenilworth Company established on land along the Chicago and North Western Railroad that they purchased in late 1889.((36)) Among the earliest houses that Maher designed in Kenilworth was the Colonial Revival house for Mary Keyes Babcock, the teacher who Sears brought from Prairie Avenue to Kenilworth. ((37)) The Babcock House rested on a boulder foundation, had clapboard on first story and was shingled on the two-story gambrel roof. ((38)) Maher also designed Colonial Revival houses there for Howard H. Spaulding, 336 Abbotsford (1891);

1. 29 Kathleen Ann Cummings, Pleasant Home: A History of the John Farson House (Oak Park: The Pleasant Home Foundation,

2002), 20

1. 30 G. W. Maher, “Originality in American Architecture,” The Inland Architect and News Record 10 (1887), 34 – 35. Karr Sorrell,

“Silsbee: The Evolution of a Personal Architectural Style” and “A Catalog of Work by J. L. Silsbee,” The Prairie School Review, VII, no. 4 (Fourth Quarter, 1970), 5 – 13 and 17 – 21.

1. 31 “Improvements at Edgewater,” The American Architect and Building News, 24 (September 22, 1888), 138; “J. Lewis

Cochran,” The History of Chicago, vol. 1, edited by John Moses and Joseph Kirkland (Chicago: Munsell & Co., 1895); Miles L. Berger, They Built Chicago: Entrepreneurs Who Shaped a Great City’s Architecture (Chicago: Bonus Books, Inc., 1992), 121 – 126; and “Cochran’s Edgewater,” Scrapbook Archive, 14 (Spring/Summer 2003), Edgewater Historical Society website, http://www.edgewaterhistory.org

1. 32 “Pertinent Personals,” The Sanitary News 13 (December 15, 1888), 81.
2. 33 Inland Architect and News Record 14 (September 1889), 25
3. 34 “Residence of G.W. Maher, Woodlawn Park,” Inland Architect and News Record, 13 (1889)
4. 35 “Among Architects and Builders,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 9, 1894, 31, and Inland Architect 27, no. 1 (February

1896).

1. 36 “The Real Estate Market,” The Economist (November 9, 1889), 1029
2. 37 Colleen Browne Kilner, Joseph Sears and His Kenilworth (Kenilworth, Illinois: Kenilworth Historical Society, 1990) and

George Washington Maher in Kenilworth (Kenilworth: Kenilworth Historical Society, 1993)

1. 38 “Various Real Estate Matters,” The Economist, March 7, 1891, 377, and Inland Architect and News Record, 17 (February

1891). The Babcock House was demolished.
:Section 8 page 15
Maher also designed Colonial Revival houses there for Howard H. Spaulding, 336 Abbotsford (1891), Morton L. Gould, 314 Abbotsford (1892); and Vibe Spicer, 312 Essex (1900). Each had a gambrel roof, shingled or clapboard walls, and windows mullioned in diamond patterns. In 1893, Maher designed a Kenilworth house for his artist bride, Elizabeth Brooks Maher, who he married on October 24, 1893. The Mahers called their house “La Chatelet” and The Architectural Review in 1907 commented that it had “a flavor of Chinese, Scandinavian, and Gothic” unlike the “strong and heavy horizontal lines” which they associated with Maher’s work at that time.39 It was plastered with a distinctive, high-pitched roof made of diamond-shaped shingles. The diamond shape was repeated in wood trim on the exterior as well as woodwork and leaded glass inside. Maher lived in the house until he died in 1926. Maher built more than 40 houses in Kenilworth. He also designed civic improvements including the entrance markers at Sheridan Road and Kenilworth Avenue and the fountain near the railroad station. Later, he created the plan for the village’s development on the west side, Kenilworth Community Development (1922).

In the late 1890s

Maher began to formulate a personal style that departed from the revival styling of his early work. Responding in part to modern houses in the area, particularly Adler & Sullivan’s Charnley House (1892) in Chicago and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Winslow House (1894) in River Forest, Maher came to favor symmetrical designs with hipped roofs, broad porches, and walls faced with smooth surfaces of Roman brick or stucco. ((40)) The John Farson House was Maher’s first design to use these principles consistently on a grand scale. Maher described it as having a “style of Architecture American, but not colonial. The lines are classic, the surfaces broad but the ornamentation centralized.” ((41)) The Farson House is one of the earliest and most distinguished examples of Prairie School designed just as that regional expression of the Arts and Crafts movement was taking form in the Midwest. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996. A group of mid-sized houses from 1898 – 99 continued the Farson House concepts on a reduced scale but they are plastered with fret sawed ornament. The William Isom House in Kenilworth (1898), the Frank J. Scheidenhelm House in Wilmette (1898), and the George T. Park House in Glencoe (1899) were built for $5,000 to $8,000, compared to the projected costs from $20,000 to $25,000 for the Coffeen House. The Coffeen House is larger and has a more elaborate interior, which sets it apart. From the earliest reports it was (((Section 8 page 15))) [[[Morton L. Gould, 314 Abbotsford (1892); and Vibe Spicer, 312 Essex (1900). Each had a gambrel roof, shingled or clapboard walls, and windows mullioned in diamond patterns.

Married

In 1893, Maher designed a Kenilworth house for his artist bride, Elizabeth Brooks Maher, who he married on October 24, 1893. The Mahers called their house “La Chatelet” and The Architectural Review in 1907 commented that it had “a flavor of Chinese, Scandinavian, and Gothic” unlike the “strong and heavy horizontal lines” which they associated with Maher’s work at that time. ((39)) It was plastered with a distinctive, high-pitched roof made of diamond-shaped shingles. The diamond shape was repeated in wood trim on the exterior as well as woodwork and leaded glass inside. Maher lived in the house untilhe died in 1926. Maher built more than 40 houses in Kenilworth. He also designed civic improvements including the entrance markers at Sheridan Road and Kenilworth Avenue and the fountain near the railroad station. Later, he created the plan for the village’s development on the west side, Kenilworth Community Development (1922).

Coffeen House

Building reports in 1899 refer to key revisions over time in the Coffeen House design from when Maher first conceived it, changes that resulted in the clean lines and simplified massing of the completed house. The house as described in March 1899 was to be of Bedford stone with a red tile roof and the porch was to be only 17 feet wide. By June it was projected to be of pressed brick and stone with a slate or tile roof. The Economist in this report stated that, Some time ago plans were prepared by Mr. Maher for a residence for Mr. Coffeen, but they were laid aside and new ones prepared and construction will now go ahead on this basis. Now pressed brick and plaster were the reported materials, as also indicated on the blueprints. ((45)) On these plans, Maher indicated “plastering” for the walls with a porch of Roman brick extending the width of the front elevation. The notation “boulders” for the porch columns was crossed off and “R.P. brick” hand-written to indicate the change to Roman pressed brick. The

1. 39 “A house of his own,” Geo. W. Maher Quarterly 2 (April – June 1992),1 – 4, and “A residence at Kenilworth, Illinois,” The

Architectural Review, 14 (March 1907),

1. 40 Cummings, 4
2. 41 “Mr. Farson’s New Home,” Oak Park Reporter, November 19, 1897, 1; Kathleen Ann Cummings, Pleasant Home: A History

of the John Farson House (Oak Park: The Pleasant Home Foundation, 2002); and Kathleen Cummings, John Farson House National Historic Landmark Nomination Form (2002)

1. 42 The Economist, August 13, 1898, 209 (Isom); The Economist, September 3, 1898, 291 (Scheidenhelm), and Chicago Daily

Tribune, March 12, 1899, 18 (Coffeen).

1. 45 “Building Department,” The Economist, June 3, 1899, 689, and blueprint of the front elevation in the possession of the present

owners.ZZ