1365 N Astor St
Chicago, IL 60610, USA

James Charnley House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The Chanley House has been the home of several families long prominent in Chicago life. James and Helen Charnley purchased the property from Louise S. Long and her husband on February 12, 1890; the Charnley House was built in 1891-92. Charnley was a wealthy Chicago lumberman and a partner in the firm of Bradner, Charnley and Company. The firm prospered and has offices throughout the Midwest.

Redmond Stephens, an attorney, purchased the house on November 3, 1911, and sold it on August 18, 1918, to James B. Waller, real estate man, son of a pioneer settler of Lake View, and father of James B. Waller -III, former- alderman, civic leader, and real estate operator. James B. Waller III and his wife lived there up to his death. Mrs. Waller occupied the house until May 1, 1969, when the property was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Hawley Smith.

Mentioned in histories of both Sullivan and Wright, the Charnley House is regarded as a noteworthy step in the development of modern architecture Professor Morrison calls the facade, “a composition of great simplicity and distinction. The house is composed of plane surface skillfully punctuated by window --voids. The plan of the house is also simplicity. itself, a stair hall in the center rising to the top of the building and flanked on each floor by two units. John Drury, author of Old Chicago Houses, comments that n what brings architectural students to this dwelling is the fact that it represents one of the first attempts at 1 modernism 1 in architecture - an attempt all the more daring because the house was built in the era of eclectic ostentation."

In its simplicity, the Charnley House is certainly related to the skyscrapers of the Chicago school, especially John Root's Monadnock Building. It also is akin to Sullivan's own Wainwright Building of 1890-91. The cleanly pierced stone sheathing of the first floors, the fine thin Roman brick of the intermediate walls or piers, the paneled ornament, the projecting cornice - are all common to both buildings.

The severe cubic volumes of the Charnley House suggest the beginnings of Wright 1 S later horizontals. To quote Manson, "the overriding effect of the house is that of quiet repose, accentuated by contrast with the hardworking pomposity of the 'Period' buildings on every side.

The uninterrupted dado, the strong cornice and the chimneys are the separate unipartite elements that, together; -produce a restful horizontality - the level line which, apparently, was already established - in Wright's mind as the "sign - qua non" of domestic architecture and which was to come 'to conspicuous flower a few years later in the Prairie House." The Charnley House is markedly lower than even the townhouses that surround it and is much more intimately human in scale.

The Charnley House was designated a landmark by the Former Chicago Commission on Architectural Landmarks in 1958.

James Charnley House, 1365 North Astor St Chicago, Cook County, IL

The Charnley House, probably designed by Frank Lloyd Wright during the time he worked for Adler and Sullivan, was recognized in February 1960 by the Commission of Chicago Architectural Landmark.