119 W Delaware Pl
Chicago, IL 60610, USA

Isaac N. Maynard Rowhouses - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The Isaac N. Maynard Rowhouses are locally significant under Criterion A in the area of Community Planning and Development and under Criterion C in the area of Architecture. The Rowhouses meet the registration requirements of the property type "City Mansions, Rowhouses and Related Institutions" in the National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form Land Subdivisions with Set-Aside Parks. The period of significance for the Rowhouses is 1880-1881. The Rowhouses are located within Bushnell's Addition. Addition owners donated one of the blocks to the City of Chicago on the condition that it forever remain an open public square. This block was named Washington Square. Within two decades a fashionable and elegant district rose around the Square. Throughout its history, the Square has continued to function as a magnet and an anchor for upscale development. The Washington Square Historic District contains one the oldest collections of rowhouses in Chicago dating from the late 19"^ century. The Rowhouses on West Delaware Place are a part of that tradition. Situated one-half block west of the Square, they contribute to the community's physical development and are a significant example of the Queen Anne style in rowhouse form, a style popular in Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s. The rowhouses also have Eastlake and Victorian Gothic details. They retain their integrity and continue their historic function, as three separate residential units. Lastly, they preserve their physical relationship to the park by retaining their original location, landscaped verges, sidewalks and front yard setback.

The Rowhouses were built within Block 6 of the 24-block subdivision created through land purchases by the American Land Company. In 1842, the Company donated one of the blocks to the City of Chicago on the condition that it forever remain an open public square. This is the block that became Washington Square. The Company's intent was to use the Square as an amenity to attract owners and investors who would in turn create a fashionable and elegant district. Their plans were successful. Prior to the Chicago Fire in 1871, the area had become a coherent residential community with churches and schools included within the subdivision. With the exception of Mahlon Ogden's house, where the Newberry Library now stands, it was all destroyed in the conflagration; however, prior residents returned and rebuilt. This included not only their homes but the churches and schools as well. Please refer to the National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, Land Subdivisions with Set-Aside Parks, Chicago, for additional historical information about the Washington Square area.

Architecturally, the Rowhouses are a significant example of the Queen Anne style in rowhouse form. The Multiple Property Documentation Form for Land Subdivisions with Set-Aside Parks lists Queen Anne as one of the significant architectural types. The style was popular in Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s. The name was coined in England to encompass an eclectic design noted for its asymmetry of form, which generally is more apparent in a house. In a townhouse, it usually has a front-gabled facade with a flat roof. Each unit may have its own design or the entire front may be unified.

The Isaac N. Maynard Rowhouses are differentiated by projecting bays and brick patterns while other patterns and stringcourses unify the front in a single design. The bay windows and patterned masonry surfaces create textural variety. There is no semblance of a smooth-walled surface. The wealth of details in the Rowhouses is the principal reason for their architectural significance and designation. There is an equal emphasis on the metal cornice and pediment. The wooden details of incised designs over doors and windows add a secondary emphasis that is apparent on close examination.

Historical Background
The settlement history of early Chicago is marked by land speculation fueled by the Illinois and Michigan Canal and later the railroads. This made Chicago an investor's dream, which was heightened further by its future as a transportation hub. The taste for sudden wealth and high living attracted an unequalled stream of Eastern capital and Eastern investors. They moved to the town and formed land companies that purchased tracks of land, subdivided them and sold them to investors. Subdivided lots were the currency of the speculators' economy.

The earliest maps of Chicago show a grid pattern of perpendicular streets and lots beginning west of the lake's edge and marching in an unrelenting grid across the main branch of the Chicago River and its two branches. The grid's pattern would have remained unrelieved but for several influences. The early 19'^ plan to expand New York City's original town was influential. The expansion set aside entire blocks preserved as open space. Additionally, by the mid-19"' century, Andrew Jackson Downing was proposing that open spaces be reserved as parks. In a responsive gesture, the canal commissioners, when reserving land for the canal route, created Chicago's first two open areas. They reserved portions of the lakefront and created Dearborn Park. Private land companies soon followed their example and created land subdivisions with set-aside parks. These parks were to remain forever available to the public. They functioned as neighborhood amenities and, in turn, boosted land values. Fashionable districts developed around the parks. Washington Square is the earliest example of a set-aside park.

Washington Square was created by a donation of a block from Bushnell's Addition. It was conveyed in 1842 and recorded in the tract book. On the plat map, Washington Square is indicated and the donation to the City of Chicago is indicated along with the restrictions that it was to be enclosed by a fence within five years and kept enclosed forever for use as a public square. The Square remains an enclosed public open space. Blocks 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13-15, 17, 19-20, 23-24 were divided into lots prior to the Chicago Fire. The others were divided after. The current lot configuration is shown in Figure 3.

By the 1860s, Washington Square was a fashionable neighborhood settled by American-born, protestant citizens of English descent. The colony of New Englanders built stately homes, mostly large frame structures, along LaSalle and Dearborn Streets amid spacious lawns and gardens. They prided themselves in gardens with large shade trees. The Chicago Fire interrupted development in 1871. Although devastating to the Washington Square area, it did not destroy the patterns of settlement. Post-fire rebuilding repeated the development patterns. Although initially lagging behind other sections of the city, the Chicago Daily Tribune in September, 1872 reported that many fine homes were being restored and new ones added in the north section.

It was an area that also attracted investors who purchased lots and built residential structures. Referring to real estate activity in 1880, the year the Rowhouses were begun, Andreas states that "considerable speculation set in....[and] extensive building enterprises were inaugurated, which alone involved an outlay of over $20,000,000 and included, besides many large commercial buildings, numerous flats and apartment houses, which sprang into great favor with those seeking investment for renting purposes, to the exclusion of single dwellings."^ The individual of means could not only build and occupy a city mansion but he or she could also invest in groups of row houses to be leased out.

During the late 1880s and 1890s, North Clark Street became a street of rooming houses and cheap cafes. By 1918, there were 57 saloons and twenty cabarets along North Clark Street between the river and North Avenue. From 1900 through 1920, the encroachment of businesses, the trend towards rooming houses and the invasion of immigrants accelerated the exodus of the wealthy residents. The residences along LaSalle and Dearborn were converted to apartments and rooming houses. This trend was reversed in the 1970s and the area around Washington Square is once again an upscale area.

In the Washington Square Historic District, rowhouses have been combined with single-family mansions on the same street frontage. These rowhouse groupings create a visual mass comparable to a multi-bayed mansion thus forming a unified street front while at the same time offering a more modest-priced dwelling or rental unit. The rowhouse shares common sidewalls with its neighbors and a narrow front that can match window and cornice lines with adjacent buildings. The interior plan is generally a side hall plan with rooms off to one side. In the Washington Square Historic District, the rowhouses vary in height between two and three stories over a raised basement. They are generally 25 feet wide.

Isaac N. Maynard
Isaac N. Maynard typifies the post-fire investor on Chicago's north side. He arrived in Chicago as an adult in 1868 appearing in the Chicago City Directory of that year. He boarded at the Revere House at the corner of Kinzie and Clark Streets. Within a year he was employed as a commercial merchant for Platt and Thorn, wholesale dealers in American and Scotch pig iron that included nails, spikes, bar and sheet iron. The metal was manufactured at the Shenango Iron Works, Newcastle, PA. They were also agents for the Bancroft, Northern, Collinsville and Deer Lake Iron Companies of Lake Superior. That year their offices were at No. 1 West Kinzie Street, adjoining the Chicago and Northwestern passenger depot. Edwin Thorn, one of the principals, also bordered at Revere House and it is tempting to suggest that Maynard and Thorn met there.

By 1870-71, Maynard was partner in the firm, then called Platt, Thorn & Maynard, located at 9 & 11 Canal Street. Maynard resided at 322 N. LaSalle, in the Washington Square area, which according to the former street numbering, was just north of Oak Street, and one block north of the Rowhouses that he would commission. The Fire destroyed this LaSalle residence; so, in 1872 the Directory lists his residence at 560 West Washington Street. He lived at 285 Indiana during 1873-74. In 1875, he once again resided near Washington Square at 254 LaSalle, one block south of the future Rowhouse location. He continued to reside there until he disappeared from the directories in 1882. He remained a commercial merchant with offices at 17 Reaper block, 1875-76, 9 Reaper block, 1876-77, and 997 Clark Street in 1877-78. E.W. Densmore and Company is located at this address. According to the City Directories and census records, no Maynard ever lived in the West Delaware Place rowhouses.".

In two separate transactions, Maynard purchased the land for the Rowhouses on October 25, 1879 and June 24, 1880. On September 27, 1880, Isaac N. Maynard was issued building permit #3069 to build a brick building with "(3) 2 stories".^ It was to be a "basement and attic dwelling" measuring 66 front feet, 48 feet deep and 36 feet high. It was located on Locust Street between LaSalle and Clark Streets on lots 31 and 32 in block 6 of Bushnell's Addition. Both the Inter Ocean and Chicago Tribune newspapers mention the issued permit in their real estate and new buildings columns.® The Inter Ocean reported that Maynard planned to build three 2-story dwellings for a cost of $12,000 while the Tribune described the plans as three brick and stone Gothic form dwellings, two-stories and cellar, each 20 x 60 feet to cost $13,000. Treat and Foltz were to be the architects. The Tribune stated that "[M)essrs. Treat &. Foltz are also preparing the plans for a large number of new buildings, which will be mentioned hereafter. The fact is, the architects are all kept busy at present, which shows that a great many buildings are in contemplation of erection."

Treat and Foltz
Samuel Atwater Treat, F.A.I.A., (1839-1910) was born in New Haven, CN. He was educated at the Collegiate and Commercial Institute, New Haven, also known as Mr. Russell's Military Academy graduating at the age of seventeen. He entered the office of Connecticut architect, Sidney M. Stone, where he was educated in the profession. He was a draftsman until the start of the Civil War. After the war, he resumed his position in Stone's office but work was slack and after several months he moved to Chicago. He began in the office of the architect, C.E. Randall, and later in practice on his own. After the Fire, he entered a partnership with Frederick Foltz and continued the partnership for twenty-two years. Foltz concentrated on the design side of the practice while Treat attended to the business side.

Frederick Foltz (1843-1916) was born in Germany and professionally educated in Europe where he practiced for a few years before migrating to the U.S. in 1866. He stayed in New York for two years before opening a practice in Chicago ultimately entering the partnership with Treat after 1871.

The corpus of their work as been described as general in character with a reputation for designing apartment houses, private residences and large industrial plants in Chicago. Among their commissions are the Wollensack Warehouse noted for its fireproof construction, Machine Works of Frazer and Chambers, the original buildings for St. Luke's Hospital, the Clinton Street Plant for Webster Electric Company, which covered several blocks. Foltz had a preference for residential work. He designed the first duplex apartment on the southeast corner of Chicago and Michigan Avenues for the Winston Estate. Apartments include the Tudor Apartments on Ellis Avenue and the Arizona Apartments on Lake Avenue. Private residences include those for George Armour on Prairie Avenue, Charles Libby on Michigan Avenue, a new home for Martin Ryerson on Drexel Avenue and the C.B. Farrell residence, 1882, on Pearson Street just west of Lake Shore Drive.

After the firm's dissolution in 1887, Treat opened an office in the newly constructed Fisher Building on South Dearborn Street. He continued the practice under his own name until his retirement. Well known in Chicago, he was a member of the former Western Association of Architects until it merged with the American Institute of Architects. He was a member and onetime President of the Chicago Chapter.

After the firm's dissolution in 1887, Treat opened an office in the newly constructed Fisher Building on South Dearborn Street. He continued the practice under his own name until his retirement. Well known in Chicago, he was a member of the former Western Association of Architects until it merged with the American Institute of Architects. He was a member and onetime President of the Chicago Chapter.

After the Rowhouses, in 1886, Treat and Foltz designed another group of rowhouses located within the Washington Square Historic District. The Hale Rowhouses are located at 855-59 North Dearborn. The three units are designed in a restrained Italianate style with paired brackets under a projecting cornice. There is a projecting bay window over the basement and raised first floor for each unit. Wall surfaces are plain with neoclassical door surrounds.

End Notes
1. The Rowhouses were not part of the Washington Square Historic District nomination because most of the intervening architectural fabric has been destroyed. The district is centered on North Dearborn Street, which is 1-1/2 blocks east of the Rowhouses. Insurance maps from the late 19"^ century and 20"^ century indicate that the Union Club and rowhouses were located on West Delaware Place between Dearborn and Clark Streets. These have been demolished.
2. There are no outbuildings on the property.
3. Andreas, Vol. Ill, p. 446.
4. The 1900 census did not record residents at the Rowhouses. In 1910, the Niels Olson family of six people occupies 123. Units 119 and 121 are functioning as rooming houses with twelve and eleven residents at each respectively. Generally, most residents were not born in Illinois. Those American-born, hailed from the east coast, most often New York. Those from abroad were from Ireland, Norway and Sweden. The 1920 census enumerator found only the 119 residents who were a family renting to four roomers, as they were termed in the records. In 1930, a family of four, who took in ten additional roomers, rented 119. A husband and wife own 121 with ten additional roomers. A mother and son, who rented to six others, own 123.
5. The first segment of land in Lot 32 was purchased from Caroline O. Jones for $6,400. The second parcel in Lot 31 was purchased for $3,000 from William O. Jones.
6. Record of Building Permits Issued by the Superintendent of Buildings. P. 145.
7. Ibid. Locust Street is the previous name for West Delaware Place.
8. Inter Ocean, Wednesday, September 29, 1880. "Real Estate: New Buildings", Chicago Daily Tribune, September 26, 1880, p. 11, column 2 and "The City-Hall", Tuesday, September 28, 1880, p.8, column 1. Maynard's initials are variously reported. In the Chicago Daily Tribune column, he is J.N. Maynard.
9. Ibid. Chicago Daily Tribune, page 11, column 2