Joseph Downey House and Coach House

“By his death Downey was a well-regarded building contractor, responsible for building such major structures as Chicago's Illinois Central Railroad Station. He was the first president of the city's Builders Club.”

“Two of the houses—the Downey and Gunder Houses—retain their historic matching coach houses. The buildings are finely crafted in terms of brick, stone, decorative metal and tile, and they possess beautifully-detailed ornament in the Prairie and Classical styles.”

“At first, the CPD was reluctant to commit to the rehabilitation of the houses themselves, but community pressure, combined with fund-raising, convinced the CPD to keep both houses and their respective coach houses as park facilities, and they were renovated in 1988.”

“The Downey House, at the corner of Sheridan and Granville, became the Berger Park South Mansion and was rehabilitated to serve as a recreational facility for the park.”

“(built 1898) in the Kenwood Chicago Landmark District. Zimmerman opened his own practice in 1898, taking offices in Steinway Hall at 64 E. Van Buren St., a piano showroom-office building famous among architectural historians as housing such progressive architects as Frank Lloyd Wright, Dwight Perkins, Pond and Pond, and Robert Spencer.”

“The yellow brick building and coach house were built in 1910. Newspaper clippings show that in the days before World War I it was the home of Axel A. Strom, vice president of two manufacturing firms and direc tor of several banks.”

“The building's original owner, Adolf Schmidt, was a founding partner in the Columbian Colortype Company, a Chicago printing company that was a pioneer in color process printing. The house was later acquired by Mundelein College, a Roman Catholic women's college, and used as the President's House.”

“The building has restrained Classical-style ornament on its porch piers and as part of the front entrance, windows and dormers. Porch piers have floral and egg-and-dart moldings, as does a small square second-floor window set squarely in the front elevation.”

“Similar to the neighboring Downey House, the Gunder House has a surviving historic coach house. Built of similar tan brick, this coach house has a high hip roof with similar wall dormers ornamented with Classical-style reliefs.”

“One surviving free-standing light fixture, similar to those flanking the house's front entrance, is located on the north side of the coach house. The Gunder House is designed in a sparely-detailed variation on the Classical Revival architectural style with ornament based on Italian Renaissance precedents.”

“There is similar ornament atop thin colonettes dividing second-floor windows, squared “capitals” atop building piers, and detailing around the building's entrances, including paired columns that ornament an arcade for the highly recessed front entrance.”