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GHM Home                                                                                                                                                       architect : family : artists : conservation

When first built, the house was subject of much remark by passers-by... John Jacob Glessner, "Story of a House," 1923

GLESSNER HOUSE In 1885, John and Frances Glessner hired Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Over the next year, he adapted the couple's specifications for gracious living into the stately home that helped redefine American domestic architecture. A radical departure from traditional residential design, Glessner House created a furor among the denizens of its exclusive Prairie Avenue neighborhood, causing George Pullman to proclaim, "I do not know what I have ever done to have that thing staring me in the face every time I go out of my door." Nestled inside the fortress-like, rusticated granite exterior is an oak-paneled English Arts and Crafts interior and a charming central courtyard. Visitors are embraced by the home's warmth and enchanted by the eminently livable spaces it offers. Throughout their years together, John and Frances Glessner studied the principles of the Aesthetic and English Arts and Crafts movements and put these principles into practice when making their decorating choices. The result of their dedication is an outstanding level of sophistication in the collections. Glessner House Museum boasts a veritable garden of earthly delights for the appreciation and study of decorative arts. From the Isaac Scott cabinetry, to the Morris & Co. textiles, and the eclectic array of ceramics, the museum offers visitors a singular experience in which nearly all of the furnishings and appointments are original to the family. Visitors to this historic home thrill at the hundreds of glorious art objects that grace the period rooms. John, a captain of industry, returned each evening to a domestic retreat made gracious through the efforts of his wife and the staff of eight servants she took great pains to manage. John and Frances, whose enduring partnership match spanned more than fifty years, also shared a consuming interest in the life of the mind, supporting numerous cultural institutions and helping to found the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The stories that live within the walls of Glessner House tell the tale of Chicago in an era that, more than any other, shaped urban America -- the family life and fashion trends, masters and servants, high culture and crass consumerism, intellectual achievements and industrial brawn. The spirit of the Gilded Age lives in Glessner House and visitors not only learn its cultural history, they experience the ambiance of this bygone world.