Bryan Lathrop House

“Many of the Civil War meetings were held there, as Bryan was a prominent figure in war work. Bryan was also founder of the Fidelity Safe Depository, which saved Chicagoans millions of dollars in the Great Fire of 1871.”

“The annual Thanksgiving concerts by the Chicago Symphony String Quartet which the Lathrops gave at their home were famous throughout Chicago society. The music and billiard room that has been supplanted by the Fortnightly Club's ballroom/assembly room was the scene of these and other musical events.”

“It is possible that the two became acquainted through Lathrop's uncle, Thomas B. Bryan, who was first vice president of the World's Columbian Exposition, when McKim came to Chicago in connection with his work on some of the Exposition buildings.”

“An extremely Especially considered was the fact that the BRYAN LATHROP HOUSE is an important element in the early development of the Gold Coast area. Built in 1891, the house remains as one of Chicago's best examples of 19th century Georgian design, the work of the renowned American architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White.”

“One Mrs. Lathrop was also a member of a distinguished family. Born Helen Lynde Aldis, she was the daughter of Judge Asa O. Aldis, who, like his father before him, served on the Supreme Court of Vermont. of her brothers was Owen F. Aldis, a lawyer who went into real estate and put up the Monadnock Building (1889-91), designed by Burnham and Root and famous as the last masonry wall-bearing building and an outstanding example of the Chicago School of Architecture.”

“However, the Lathrop House, McKim's World's Fair buildings, the Edward T. Blair House, and the residence Stanford White designed for Robert W. Patterson Jr. at the corner of Burton Place and Astor Street (now the Bateman School) were Chicago's only buildings from the drawing boards of McKim Mead & White.”

“In Boston's Copley Square, Henry Hobson Richardson's Trinity Church (1872-77) and McKim's Boston Public Library (1888-95) face each other, their contrasting styles graphically illustrating "how far the pupil departed from the style of his master." Taking as their models the Georgian houses of colonial days for unostentatious private dwellings such as the Lathrop House and the palatial edifices of the Italian Renaissance for monumental public buildings such as the Boston Public Library and for grandiose private buildings such as the J. P. Morgan Library and Villard Houses in New York, McKim, Mead & White achieved fame and great popularity.”

“As a result of the sudden death of the Chicago architect John W. Root on the eve of the World's Columbian Exposition, the Eastern firms--among them McKim, Mead & White--that had been invited to plan the buildings and grounds were left free to carry out their own ideas.”

“Here, too, was the elevator machinery. The Lathrop House was one of the first residences to boast an elevator. It was, of course, hydraulic, and it was not until 1935 that electrical controls were installed.”