1020A

(2014 photo)

This residence is one of the three remaining apartment homes in the building which is in the original configuration. It is a remarkable living space with the original five bedrooms.

The entrance to the apartment opens into the reception hall. Take note of the beautiful flooring in this large space and throughout the home. From it radiates the large living room and a parlor, a library with a balcony and the dining room. The large living room has a fireplace at one end. The parlor is just off the living room with casement windows on two sides. The room opens through a wide entrance into what is currently a library. This room then opens into the dining room. French doors were probably used in this opening in order to retain the open feeling of the space. The woodwork in this and all the apartments is birch.

The dining room is quite large and gracious. It is connected to the front reception hall and to the kitchen through the butler’s pantry with floor to ceiling cabinets of beautiful polished birch. This same cabinetry is installed in the kitchen which has been expanded with a family breakfast/art room in what was once a servant’s bedroom. There is an interior connection to two smaller back bedrooms which served as servants’ quarters. The servants’ bathroom serves today as a 2nd bath and laundry room.

Operating leaded glass casement windows, originally from a building at the Park Ridge Country Club, have been set into the wall in the hallway, which originally separated the servants’ quarters, kitchen and rear exit from the family living quarters. These windows adding nicely to the natural light and ventilation in the rooms and hallway.

The family living area includes three large bedrooms and two full baths. Note the seven-foot doors with operating transoms and the floor-to-ceiling windows with transoms in the first bedroom. True to the description in the Directory to Apartments of the Better Class, the apartment is filled with light. A hallway leads to the private area of the apartment with three large bedrooms and bathrooms. In 1949 and again in 1953, some of the large apartments were cut up into smaller units. Currently there are 35 units in this unusual building just one block from the Lake.