5453

This home was built in 1898 by architects Holabird and Roche. The firm is well known in Chicago for some landmark buildings including the Marquette Building, the Three Arts Club and City Hall. This home was built on a 50’ lot sold by J.L. Cochran to P.H. McNulty. The McNulty family had the home custom built in the Colonial Revival style of the 19th century. This style includes hip roof, double front dormers, classical columns and some special window designs. In the case of this home, the distinctive elements include the beautiful bay window with fanlight at the second floor level. These elements are repeated in the front entrance with sidelights. The front porch is gracious with its turned spindle balusters, fluted Doric columns and wide dimension to allow for porch furniture. The stucco on the home is original. As you enter the home, notice that the front door is not symmetrical to the staircase. This seems to have been the fashion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is evident on a majority of homes in Lakewood Balmoral. Once inside, you will pass through an air lock hallway into an irregularly shaped central hallway which serves as a reception area for the front and side entrances as well as a connection to the back of the house and upstairs. At the staircase there is a beautiful newel post carved with a pineapple design, a symbol of hospitality. Just past the staircase is a doorway to the back area of the house and a back staircase. All the woodwork and doors are oak as well as the floors. Notice the baseboard moldings and the design of the doorway moldings. In the hall there is a wainscoting with an oak molding.

From the hallway you can see the library, which possibly served as an office. It is really a room separated from the rest of the house. It has a front-facing window and some built-in bookcases too. Across the hall, you will enter the living room, which is appointed in antique furniture of the period. This room is made quite grand by the cornice, which includes both wooden brackets and a dentil design. The mantel around the fireplace is an antique replacement with the original hearth tiles.

Between the living room and the dining room are six panel pocket doors in oak. The dining room is both elegant and inviting with a bay window to the south and a fireplace on the interior wall. This fireplace with oak mantel is original and it is wood burning. The plaster ceiling bracket above the chandelier is also original.

Before the current owners purchased the home, the original kitchen had been redesigned and expanded to include a food preparation area and an eating area. Part of the current kitchen may have been storage at one time. Now the eating area opens out to the backyard and garden. Please enjoy the garden and then exit along the north side of the home to the front. While you are in the passageway, notice the side entrance to the home and the multicolored painting of the woodwork. The company that did the work on the home is Victorian Painting. The owner of the company, Mike Miller, signed the work on the side of the porch that you will pass on the way to the front.