| Address | Various |
|---|---|
| Built | Various |
| Architect | Various |
| Status | Designated Chicago Landmark District |
| Designation Date | June 28, 1989 (Final)City Council Journal of the Proceedings, p. 2600 |
| Neighborhood | Near North Side |
| Type | Residential district |
Direct quotes from the Chicago Landmark Designation Report
“Lake Shore Drive was the brainchild of Potter Palmer, one of the outstanding personalities of a generation that produced a number of the city's remarkable entrepreneurial leaders. Born in 1826, the son of a Quaker farmer in upstate New York, Potter Palmer came to Chicago in 1852 and was successively founder and proprietor of a nationally famous department store (now Marshall Field & Company) and a prestigious hotel (the Palmer House).”
“With the concentration of these families in their elegant houses along Lake Shore Drive, Chicago's high society with its display of wealth and elaborate rituals had a new center of activity.”
“In Chicago, the Marquette Building of 1894 (designated a Chicago Landmark in 1975) is considered by many to be their most notable achievement. Although singularly innovative in their commercial work, Holabird and Roche's residential designs, while always of high quality, were more conventional. 1260 North Lake Shore Drive with its simple rectangular massing, uncomplicated brick and limestone surfaces, and minimal classical detailing typifies their more usual approach.”
“In 1916 the residence at 1530 Lake Shore Drive was built for Bernard Albert Eckhart, one of Chicago's truly outstanding corporate and civic leaders. Born in Alsace, then part of Germany, in 1852 and educated in the Milwaukee public schools, Eckhart made a fortune in America; in his case in the flour milling business.”
“At 1350 Lake Shore Drive on the block between Banks and Schiller streets, architects Henry Ives Cobb and Charles H. Frost designed for Palmer a sumptuous mansion in the English battlemented style.”
“He sold to none but those he considered his peers, and thus the neighborhood became the most elegant part of town. Among those who bought property on or near Lake Shore Drive were William Borden, Bryan Lathrop, Robert Todd Lincoln, and Harold McCormick and his wife, the former Edith Rockefeller.”
“On an elemental level, the houses are remarkably similar in appearance; only the historical details differ. Each is four stories high capped by a denticulated cornice. Each sits on a rusticated base with smooth stone facing on the upper floors.”