503 W Wrightwood Ave
Chicago, IL 60614, USA

Francis J. Dewes House (Swedish Engineers Society) - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

Date of construction, 1894 - 1896
Architects, Adolph Cudell and Arthur Hercz.

Landmark site (legal description of property)
Lot 5 of H.M. Hobart's subdivision of lots 15 to 19 inclusive and the alley southwest of and adjacent to lots 17, 18, and 19 in Subdivision of Blocks 1 and 2 of Out lot A of Wrightwood, being a Subdivision of the southwest quarter of Section 28-40-14. Recorded November 27, 1860.

This is a corner lot, the main entrance faces north on Wrightwood Ave.

Historic Background
In 1894 forty-nine-year-old Francis Joseph Dewes, wealthy Chicago brewer, purchased the site from Helga A. Haugen, executor for the estate of Henry M. Hobart, and commissioned architects Adolph Cudell and Arthur Hercz to design a house for him.
German born (Aix La Chapelle) Cudell had imigrated to Chicago immediately after the great Chicago fire of 1871. He had not been in the city long when Cyrus McCormick asked him to design a great French style mansion on Rush St. By 1894 when Dewes commissioned him to design the mansion, Cudell was one of the best-known architects in Chicago. One of his most famous designs was Aldine Square, as also was the Perry H. Smith house on Pine and Huron. He likewise built a row of houses on Indiana Ave. between Sixteenth and Eighteenth streets on the west side of Indiana, now destroyed.
Francis Joseph Dewes was a man of education and culture. He was the son of a prominent German brewer who became a member of the German parliament. He had come to Chicago in 1868 and by 1882 had established his own brewery company. By 1894 he had accumulated considerable wealth and had established himself as one of the foremost brewers of Chicago. He wanted a home which would reflect his tastes in old world art and culture, and had money enough to command the very best. For years the great villa he had built was one of the most grandiose and admired homes in Chicago.

Arthur Hercz was also a European trained artist who had become a recognized artist in Germany before he came to Chicago in 1882 as manager of a furniture manufacturing firm. As a young man Hercz had studied in Vienna where he had founded the short-lived Kunstgewerbe Jornal. The Dewes house, which he helped design, is almost pure 18th century Louis XV revival, of the style that was popular in Vienna when Hercz was living there.

The Dewes family lived in the great baroque mansion for almost a quarter of a century. On July 1, 1920, the Swedish Engineers Society purchased the mansion for their clubhouse and headquarters. The Society still owns and occupies the mansion. Since it has had but two owners, it is reasonably unalter e~ A new interior stairway was installed ed in 1921. A fire escape was added in 1948 and in 1953 the three-story brick coach house was demolished. Most of the elaborate iron fence and gates that joined the Francis Dewes house to the August Dewes house have disappeared. A wall between two bedrooms on the 2nd floor has been removed to create a single large room.

This house is still greatly admired for its elegant facade and interior, the craftsmanship exhibited in its every room, and the richness of the materials used in its construction. The immediate impression of a visitor walking around this mansion is as though he were walking through some palace of the bourbons of the Hapsburgs. The design, decor, and workmanship are of authentic eighteenth-century grandeur, a type rarely created outside of Europe.

By some rare stroke of luck this house has survived the ravages of time and progress that have claimed so many others in the past twenty years. And it is undoubtedly one of the very last of the great homes that once graced the North and South shore areas of Chicago.

Francis J. Dewes House, 503 West Wrightwood Ave Chicago, Cook County, IL

The house was built for a wealthy Chicago brewer, Francis J. Dewes, shortly after the World`s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The elaborate exterior was designed in a Central European Baroque Revival style, while the interior displays a wide range of extravagant architectural decoration, almost all of which remains original and unusually well preserved.