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Hyde Park History
Vol. 32
spring 2010
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Chicago, IL
Permit No. 85
Annual Dinner:
A Time for Celebration
and Reflection
Hyde Park Historical Society
HP 5529
S. Lake Park Avenue
HS Chicago, IL 60637
Collecting and Preserving Hyde Park’s History
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Fill out the form below and return it to:
The Hyde Park Historical Society
5529 S. Lake Park Avenue • Chicago, IL 60637
This Newsletter is published by
the Hyde Park Historical Society, a
not-for-profit organization founded
in 1975 to record, preserve, and
photographs by Marc Monaghan
Hyde Park Historical Society
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N0. 2spring
2010
Published by the Hyde Park Historical Society
promote public interest in the history
of Hyde Park. Its headquarters,
located in an 1893 restored cable car
station at 5529 S. Lake Park Avenue,
houses local exhibits. It is open to
Enclosed is my
new
renewal membership
in the Hyde Park Historical Society.
Name
Address
Zip
Student $15
Member $30
Sponsor $50
Benefactor $100
the public on Saturdays and Sundays
from 2 until 4pm.
Web site: hydeparkhistory.org
Telephone: HY3-1893
President: Ruth Knack
Editor: Frances S. Vandervoort
Membership Coordinator:
Claude Weil
Designer: Nickie Sage
Top row, left to right: Caroline Cracraft thanks the Society for her Cornell Award for her chronicle of Leon and Marian
Despres; Lisa Oppenheim and Frank Valadez receive their Cornell Award for the Chicago Metro History Fair. Bottom row,
left to right: Peter Schoenmann, Elizabeth Kendall, and Lesa Dowd with their Despres Awards for restoring the Blackstone
Library murals; Ishmael Smith, teacher Stacy Stewart, and Bryanna Stalling with their Despres Awards for successfully
advocating for the landmarking of the Carl Hansberry House.
n Saturday, February 27, 2010, more than 160
O
guests enjoyed food, music, and reflection at
the Society’s annual dinner held at the Quadrangle
Club. Highlighting the program was a celebration
of the 50th anniversary of the Gilbert and Sullivan
Opera Company of Hyde Park and a tribute to Robert
Ashenhurst, long-time Society member and co-founder
of the G. and S. Company. Bob passed away ➤ 2
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1 in October, 2009, but his spirit lives on in his
music, his professional accomplishments, and his
commitment to the community.
Paul Cornell Awards were bestowed upon Caroline
Cracraft for chronicling the life and times of Leon and
Marian Despres, and upon the Chicago Metro History
Education Center for inspiring young people to learn
more about Chicago’s history, especially that of Hyde
Park.
Marian and Leon Despres Preservation Awards were
granted to the group of experts involved in restoring
and preserving the historic murals in the dome of the
Blackstone Library, and to students and their teacher
from the Amelia Earhart School who advocated for
landmark status from the Chicago City Council for the
Hansberry House in West Woodlawn. This modest
home was the residence of Carl Hansberry and his
family, including his daughter, Lorraine Hansberry,
whose 1959 play, Raisin in the Sun, called national
attention to housing segregation in cities. Issues
surrounding the house became the basis of a 1940 U.
S. Supreme Court ruling against racially restrictive
housing covenants.
Elaine Smith’s piano playing provided pre-dinner
music and accompaniment for Noel Taylor’s songs from
G. and S. operas. She also accompanied Helen Bailey’s
vocal tribute to Bob Ashenhurst.
New Society Members
The Hyde Park Historical Society welcomes the
following new members: David R. Ashenhurst,
Bruce Carroll, JoAnn Scurlock and Richard H.
Beal, Solvig and Harry Robertson, Mel Von H.
Smith, Mary Silverstein and Deborah Wahid.
photographs by Marc Monaghan
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Top row, left to right: Alta Blakely is designated an HPHS Board Member Emerita by Carol Bradford; Roland Bailey tells
the history of the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company of Hyde Park. Bottom row, left to right: Helen Bailey sings a tribute
to Robert Ashenhurst; Noel Taylor is the Pirate King of the Pirates of Penzance.
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Haydon—he’s the one who designed all those stained
glass windows for Rockefeller Chapel and then got
someone to teach us Hyde Park volunteers how to cut
the glass and make the windows. For several decades
Doug Anderson has led people on bird walks on
Wooded Island. One time a new young professor, a
refugee from Russia, climbed a willow tree over the
lagoon and sang Russian folk songs.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Let’s go. It’s going to be
okay. Who’s going to attack two young mothers and
their children?” So we set off.
It was a beautiful day on the Island. Spring breezes
tossed the leaves of the willows and oak trees, planted
at the time of the Columbian Exposition. Wild grasses
and flowers greeted us as we crossed over the arched
bridge to the Island. Birds sang of the beauty of the day.
We hiked along the quiet path to a grassy plot far
from the rushing traffic on the nearby highway. We
spread our picnic and enjoyed a quiet lunch. Then the
four children frolicked in the sunshine. My friend was
facing the willows that leaned over the lagoon in a
deep thicket of bushes—a favorite place of fishermen.
“It is beautiful here,” my friend finally said.
Suddenly a look of terror spread over her face. I
turned to see what had frightened her. An ancient man
was coming slowly out of the bushes. He wore a ragged
dark coat distinguished by its large, decorated brass
buttons dangling, one missing. He carried a bucket, a
fish knife, a pole, and a few fish on a line. “He won’t
hurt us,” I assured her.
He came closer. He smiled at the children. “Would
you like to see what I have in my bucket?” he asked.
The children were timid. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. He
dumped out several small crayfish. “Thought you kids
might like to play with my left-over bait.”
Relieved, my friend said, “Sure. Thanks.” The baby
was afraid of the crayfish. So the man reached into his
pocket. “Here,” he said, handing the baby a large brass
button. His sister began to cry, seeing that her little
brother had been given a shiny button to play with.
Suddenly the old man pulled out his long knife.
My friend froze in horror. The old man calmly turned
the knife toward himself, cut a second button from
his coat, and gave it to the crying child. She stopped
crying.
The old man walked quietly away.
Post script: I wrote this story many years ago. If
that old man is still around, I want to thank him for
restoring my faith in the kindness of human nature.
Vi Fogle Uretz was a longtime member of the Hyde Park
Historical Society who passed away in May, 2007. This
article was made available to Hyde Park History by her
husband, Robert Uretz, and was first published in the Hyde
Park Herald on December 24, 2003. It is published here with
the permission of the Hyde Park Herald.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Saturday, April 17, 2010 Lecture by Dr.
Gregory Mueller of the University of
Chicago and Chicago Botanic Garden:
The Fungus Among Us: Nature and Man
in the Big City. The lecture will take
place from 2-4 p.m. in the Community
Lounge of the University of Chicago’s
Center for Multicultural Affairs, 5710
South Woodlawn Avenue.
Also on April 17, the 20th Annual Quilt
Show and Sale will take place at the
United Church of Hyde Park, 1448 East
53rd Street, from 10 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.
On Sunday, April 18, architectural
historian Sam Guard will lead his
second tour of Hyde Park buildings
designed by the Pond Brothers. The
tour will begin at the southeast corner
of 55th Street and Woodlawn Ave. at
1:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 15, 2010 Carol Bradford
will give a special talk commemorating
the 150th anniversary of the United
Church of Hyde Park. She will illustrate
her talk with nearly 100 glass plate
photographs taken during the first 50
years of the Hyde Park Presbyterian
Church, founded in May, 1860.
Photography expert Joe Marlin will use
a special projector for these unusual
images.
The major June event will be a showing
of Hyde Park-related exhibits from the
Chicago Metro History Fair. Watch for
the announcement of the date.
Details of these events will be provided
by mail and on the Society’s website.
Answer to Mystery Quiz:
The previous two observatories of the University of
Chicago were the Dearborn Observatory of the first
University of Chicago, built in the 1860s at 34th
Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, and the Kenwood
Observatory, built in the early 1890s behind the
George Ellery Hale House at 4545 South Drexel
Boulevard.
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➤ 5 sometimes spelled coigns or coins, are small slabs
of limestone or arrangements of offset bricks, placed
in the corners of buildings at regular intervals to add
strength and detail to the overall structure. The quoins
of the Thompson house are handsome indeed.
The walls of the third floor surround the windows
and extend upward into a peak, all detailed by
a diamond-shaped pattern of bricks known as a
diaper. This odd name refers to an array of bricks
distinguished by a distinct color and arrangement, as
in this house. How did the term diaper, with which
new parents are infinitely familiar, come to describe
architectural forms made of bricks? It turns out that
the word diaper is distantly related to the more ancient
term, damask, a fabric woven with rich, sometimes
diamond-like patterns. In a more frugal time, mothers
used cloth diapers on their children at a time when
disposable diapers were a luxury. Parenting manuals
advised that the most absorbent diapers were birdseye
diapers, those woven in a small diamond-like pattern
supposedly like the eye of a bird.
After a slog through rainy weather, we arrived at the
Lillie House on the southwest corner of 58th Street and
Kenwood Avenue. Tim Samuelson commented that
this house, built in 1901, is his favorite of all Pond
buildings. The house was built in 1901 by University
of Chicago embryologist, Frank Rattray Lillie and his
wife, heiress of wealth from the Crane Company, a
Chicago manufacturer of bathroom fixtures. We were
unable to go inside, but stood in the drizzle to examine
walls detailed by bands of bricks in rows of two, three,
or more. I couldn’t help thinking that, if no one were
looking, these strips and projections might tempt
aspiring mountain climbers to use these walls to hone
their rock-climbing skills!
From the Lillie house, we walked west on 58th Street
to the American School of Education building, built by
the Pond Brothers in 1906 near Drexel Boulevard and
now part of the University of Chicago. This handsome
building was designated a Chicago landmark in 1995,
and was honored with the Society’s Marian and Leon
Despres Preservation Award in 2008. The building’s
dark-paneled lobby, essentially unchanged since its
construction, has large windows allowing light to enter
from the south. Leaded glass details these windows as
well as the windows of the inner doors of the vestibule.
Tim Samuelson amused us with names of some of the
American School’s better known graduates, including
members of the Flying Wallenda family, tennis star
Andrea Jaeger, and Donny Osmond.
The exterior of this building is characterized by
Pond trademarks, rows of bricks and carefully placed
limestone bands. And, at the very top of the eastern
flank of the building are diapers!
After visiting the American School, we headed east,
then north on Woodlawn Avenue where we were treated
to remarks by Sam Guard and Tim Samuelson about
Pond-designed houses on the east side of the street
between 55th and 57th Streets. The final stop was for a
careful look at the unusual six-flat apartment building
at 5515 South Woodlawn Avenue 55th Street. Instead
of the traditional side-by-side placement of the sets of
three apartments in most six-flat apartment buildings,
the two wings of the building are at right angles to
each other. Sam pointed out that this allows an efficient
use of space, and showed us how the Ponds used bricks
of different textures and tints to construct walls, all
of which added warmth and detail to an otherwise
bland surface. Also, they opted for dark bricks used
for the lowest levels of their buildings. The bricks of
this building are particularly dark because they were
fired much longer than ordinary bricks, charring the
outer surface to almost black. Near the very top of the
building’s walls are, not surprisingly—diapers!
The Pond Architectural firm was also responsible for
the University Congregational Church, built in 1895
at the northwest corner of 56th Street and Dorchester
Avenue. It was replaced in the early 1950s by the red
brick high rise apartment building Hyde Parkers know
so well. This church, and other buildings designed by
the Ponds, are all described in this fine book edited by
David Swan and Terry Tatum.
The final stop for this group was the Woodlawn Tap,
not known for its architecture but the perfect place
to reflect on the talents of the Pond Brothers, who
provided Hyde Park with some of the most distinctive
buildings in Chicago. FSV
Note: Sam Guard will lead a tour of more Bond buildings
in Hyde Park on Sunday, April 18. See Upcoming Events for
details.
Miracle on
Wooded Island
By Vi Fogle Uretz
“Oh, we can’t go there,” my friend said. “It’s too
dangerous. We might get mugged.” My friend was
new to Hyde Park and had heard of the dangers. The
children looked at us expectantly. They had been
promised a day’s outing on Wooded Island—a favorite
place of mine—an island made for the World’s Fair of
1893.
When I was a student at the University of Chicago in
the 1930s, Harold Haydon used to take his watercolor
painting class there. We painted pictures of the lagoon,
the boats, and the ancient willows and oak trees. Harold
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A Childhood
in Early
Hyde Park
By Helen Mathews Miller
In 1894, my father Shailer
Matthews left Colby College
in Waterville, Maine, where
he taught history and political
economy, to join the new University
of Chicago being built under the presidency of
William Rainey Harper. My father was Dean of the
Divinity School for 25 years until his retirement in
1933. He built the three-story brick house with white
trim at 5736 Woodlawn Avenue. It was said that no
frame houses were permitted after the Great Chicago
Fire of 1871. My mother joined him after the birth
of their son and the three of them lived in the old
Del Prado Hotel on 59th and Washington Street,
(now Blackstone Avenue), while the house was being
completed. It was the second house on the block.
Woodlawn Avenue was unpaved; cows were pastured
across the street; rats scurried under the wooden board
sidewalks, and it must have seemed a dreary spot to
my mother coming from her New England home. The
house was equipped with both electricity and natural
gas (“in case the electricity should fail”). The roof
was of slate shingles brought from Maine, as were the
kitchen sink and laundry tubs. The interior woodwork
was the golden oak so popular at that time. There were
transoms over each bedroom door which could be closed
or opened for ventilation, and a speaking tube from the
front bedroom to the kitchen through which one could
send a piercing whistle to attract someone’s attention
for the message to follow. Two of the bedrooms had gas
grates for extra warmth. The grates gave a great “plop”
when lighted and smelled faintly of gas. A chute from
the 3rd floor bathroom to the basement disposed of
laundry. All the pipes in the house were of lead.
I was born in 1898 and recently came across the bill
for my delivery by Dr. Frank Carey, $75. My sister Mary
arrived four-and-one-half years later. Up to that time we
had had no telephone, depending on the Quadrangle
Club, then around the corner on 58th Street, for phone
calls. With her birth imminent, it was thought wise to
install our own phone to call the doctor. The Quadrangle
Club was later moved on rollers across the campus to
make way for the Oriental Institute, and the present
club was erected at 57th Street and University Avenue.
Above: Helen Mathews’ high school graduation photo,
Correlator, 1916.
Other professors arrived and built their homes up and
down Woodlawn and Lexington Avenue (now University
Avenue), from 55th Street to the Midway. Soon there was
quite a group of children my age in our block, all boys
except for Clarinda Buck and me. Thanks to my brother,
all boys were kind in allowing us to join their track
meets and King Arthur tournaments. There were the
Jordans, the Bucks, the Herricks, the Vincents, the Loebs
(who covered their back yard with gravel because it was
more sanitary than grass), the Hales, and the Donaldsons.
In the winter we flooded the yard for ice skating, and
built forts and a toboggan slide out of huge snow balls.
We had “hose parties” in hot weather.
Papa was in great demand as a lecturer and preacher
at colleges and churches all over the country, so he
was away from home a great deal. Once I asked him
if speaking to small groups was worthwhile. He said,
“Yes, if I can enlarge their outlook even a little.” He
was never ordained as a minister, preferring to teach
and write. He was the author of some 20 or more
books, among them The Social Teachings of Jesus, Is God
Emeritus?, The Faith of Modernism, The French Revolution,
and his autobiography, New Faith for Old.
He was also very active in the Hyde Park Baptist
(now Union) Church, was President of the Federal
Council of Churches, and on the boards of the Northern
Baptist Convention, the University of Chicago
Settlement, the Chautauqua Institution, Church
Peace Union, and Kobe College, Japan. He founded
and edited a news magazine, The World Today. My
mother, too, was busy with outside activities: the
Needlework Guild of the World, Camp Farr of the U.
of C. Settlement, and Women’s Society of the Baptist
Church. She was a member of Mrs. George Glessner’s
Monday morning reading class at 18th and Prairie
Avenue and of the “Once a Weeks,” a group of close
friends in the neighborhood, one on the board of the
Chicago Orphan Asylum. ➤ 4
photograph by Peter O. Vandervoort
6
The Mathews’ house at 5736 S. Woodlawn Avenue.
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3 Naturally, the faculty children went to the
University Elementary and High School (being given
half-tuition). The school had developed from the old
John Dewey School my brother attended at 58th
and Ellis. I reveled in classes in art, weaving, clay
modeling, woodwork, and copper shop, sewing and
cooking (for both girls and boys) and especially in Miss
Stillwell’s print shop where we set up type by hand
and printed our own booklets of poems and Greek
and Norwegian mythology, illustrating them with
drawings done in our art class. There were the usually
academic subjects also, starting French in the 4th
grade. American history seems to have been somewhat
neglected. We were taken on field trips to the Japanese
tea house on the Wooded Island and to see the Indiana
sand dunes to study bugs and weeds. We were taken to
the fire station on 55th Street to see a demonstration of
instantaneous response to a fire alarm. Also, we visited
the Lake Michigan shore to view three Spanish ships
(the “Caravels”)—reproductions of those in which
Columbus sailed when he discovered America, then
anchored off the land where stood La Rabida Convent.
The ships were donated by Spain to the Chicago
World’s Fair in 1893.
One day, when I was alone in the house, I decided
to climb down the outside to the ground. I went out
the window in Papa’s third floor study, dropped to the
small balcony below, climbed over the wooden railing,
slid down the downspout to the roof of the front porch,
and went to the north end where I could climb over
the railing and slide down the long post of the porch
railing below. From there, it was an easy jump from
there to the ground, but I confess I arrived shaken. No
one ever mentioned this exploit to me so I assume it
was unknown.
On spring Saturday mornings, Connie McLaughlin,
Clarinda, and I would climb into the low branches of
the old willow tree in the field now occupied by Ida
Noyes Hall, where we read aloud David Copperfield as
we munched gumdrops and horehound candy. Clarinda
and I sat on the back porch steps reading the endless
Green Fairy, Blue Fairy, and Red Fairy Books, and the
Little Colonel books. She believed she was a witch
because she had red hair. Carroll Mason and I were
champion “jack” players, inventing new tricks for that
ancient game. She had a Shetland pony and would take
me for drives around Washington Park.
Special treats were monthly concerts by the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra in Mandel Hall, and the Fuller
Sisters who sang old English songs accompanied by
harpsichord and harp. Sunday afternoons the children on
our block were invited to Gardner Hale’s house where
his mother read aloud Scott’s Ivanhoe, a little advanced
for me, being four years younger than the others.
Carroll, Connie, and I would wait until the workmen
had left a new house just being built and then explore
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to see what we could find to collect, climbing up
ladders and over loose boards. We specialized in
acquiring drops of lead left by the plumbers and
once were richly rewarded to find a whole cup of lead
in the Frank Lloyd Wright House (nicknamed the
“Dreadnaught”), then being build across the street.
The first play I ever went to was The Deceitful Dean,
given by the student players, The Blackfriars.
As a member of the University Athletic Board, Papa
could get free tickets to all the games. So he, Mr. Bock,
Clarinda, and I attended football games in Stagg Field
and basketball games in Bartlett Gymnasium.
I learned to swim in Mr. Whit’s swimming class
in the Bartlett Gymnasium pool. Miss Hinman
conducted a social dancing class that met in our
various homes. Once a week I rode my bicycle to my
music class with Miss Van Hook on Rosalie Court
(now Harper Avenue), and finally learned to play When
Morning Gilds the Skies on the piano.
For Christmas we decorated the tree with strands
of popcorn and cranberries, and lighted it with real
candles that miraculously never caused a fire. I was
usually sick with the grippe, and would be brought
downstairs Christmas morning wrapped in blankets
and full of calomel*. The German band would play
the old Christmas music outside each house. In spring
the scissors sharpener man would appear, ringing his
cheery bells, and the organ grinder, with his flea-ridden
monkey, would arrive. I can still feel the monkey’s icy
little hand as he clutched my penny and doffed his cap
in thanks.
When the wind blew from the northwest, the air
was filled with the heavy odor of the Stockyards, and
we would close all our windows. But all summer the
air was also filled with the beautiful strains of music
from across the street as Fanny Bloomfield Zeister, the
concert pianist, practiced her scales.
We had a “poor family” living on the West Side, to
whom we gave clothes and food, but whom we never
got to know personally. Yet they served to remind us
that many were less fortunate than we were and needed
help. Many of our neighbors employed Mr. Riley, a
private watchman, to make the rounds at night to
check windows and doors, but it was generally believed
(that the reason) he came around only once a month
was to collect his modest salary. Once I tested this
and strung a black thread from post to post across the
front porch. It was intact the next morning. Yet no one
thought it wise to dismiss him.
Our family belonged to the Hyde Park Baptist (now
Union) Church. After Sunday school and church it was
good to dash home to a dinner of roast chicken and
chocolate ice cream. There were often guests, a visiting
preacher or foreign missionary, or two college girls, as
our parents were counselors of Kelly Hall, one of the
University dormitories.
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Every evening Larry, the lamplighter, would stop his
horse in front of our house, lean his ladder up against
the lamp post and light the gas lamp. Fire engines
terrified me as the horses galloped down the street
pulling the steaming engine and hook and ladder; we
were reassured only when they had passed our house.
Other familiar sounds were the “uxtra, uxtra” of the
newsboy calling out some exciting news, and we
would run out to buy a copy of the latest newspaper.
We loved all the horses that delivered packages to us:
the grocery horse, Marshall Field’s handsome pair of
dappled grays, and the milk wagon horse. We slipped
lumps of sugar into their feed bags whenever possible.
Help seemed to be plentiful: a cook and “scone
maid” lived in and a laundress came once a week. Miss
McKenzie came Saturday morning to shampoo our
hair, Miss Helmar once in a while to sew and mend.
John Halstrom shoveled snow and tended the furnace
in winter and mowed the grass in summer.
At Halloween we carved our pumpkin and put it,
lighted up, in the oak tree in the back yard. The boys
would sneak up to the Deke (Delta Kappa Epsilon)
fraternity house, ring the bell, and run. If caught, they
were likely to be held under a cold shower bath.
The urge to reminisce, once yielded to, is difficult
to stop. From my eighties, these memories reflect my
deep gratitude for a childhood spent in this pleasant
and stimulating neighborhood.
*Calomel, mercurous chloride, is a yellowish-white
chemical compound once used to treat a variety of
ailments, including digestive upsets, skin problems,
syphilis and, obviously, grippe.
This essay is taken from a document discovered by Society
member, Bert Benade, who found it in papers turned over to
him by Mary Irons, former Society member. We have learned
from Helen Miller’s daughter, Mary Louise Williamson, who
lives in Maryland, that Helen attended Vassar College from
which she graduated in 1920. She married Louis Miller, with
whom she adopted Mrs. Williamson and Mrs. Williamson’s
sister, Mrs. Olo Kolade, now deceased. She worked for many
years as a social worker for the City of Chicago where she
supervised the well-being of adopted children. She died in
November, 1997 at age 99, and is buried next to her husband
in the Miller area of an old cemetery in Akron, Ohio. We
are grateful to Ms. Williamson and to Kerry Tulson of the
Alumni Office of the University of Chicago Laboratory School
for providing this information.
Hyde Park Mystery Quiz
Yerkes Observatory is the third observatory of the
University of Chicago. Name one of the first two.
Coins, Diapers, and
Roasted Bricks: How
the Pond Brothers
Changed the Face
of Hyde Park
On Sunday, March 7, Chicago architect David Swan
spoke at HPHS Headquarters to a standing-room-only
crowd about the book, The Autobiography of Irving K.
Pond (Hyoogen Press, Inc. 2010), edited by Swan and
his colleague, Terry Tatum, Director of Research for
the City of Chicago’s Landmark Division.
This dynamic presentation served to remind me
why I became a member of the Hyde Park Historical
Society in the first place. When I joined, I fully
expected to learn about the architecture of local
buildings. Like most people in Hyde Park, I was
familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House.
I knew about Louis Sullivan’s Auditorium Theater
and long had admired the work of Daniel Burnham
on Michigan Avenue. Although I had been in the
Quadrangle Club dozens of times, the name of the
architect, Howard Van Doren Shaw, meant nothing to
me. Irving K. Pond’s name had never crossed my lips
until I connected his name with the now-landmarked
American School of Education building in the heart
of the University of Chicago’s ever-expanding hospital
system.
Being a member of the Society has opened my eyes to
local architectural treasures I might never have noticed
other than to say, “Hmm—that’s a lovely house. I
wonder who designed it!” or, “I love cupolas—they
always remind me of a witch’s castle!” Before I heard of
zoned heating—separate heat sources for different parts
of a building—I wondered how owners could afford to
heat the huge homes of Kenwood and Hyde Park.
On this day, I set out to learn about the legacy of the
Ponds. After David Swan’s illustrated lecture, Society
board member Jack Spicer, who organized the event,
Chicago architectural historian Tim Samuelson, and
the irrepressible Sam Guard lent their expertise and
enthusiasm to a tour of local buildings designed by the
Ponds. The first stop was the 1899 Thompson House
on Blackstone Avenue, now the home of David and
Peggy Bevington. The entrance hall of this handsome
brick building, graced by serene arches and dark
beams, conveys a sense of welcome to all who enter.
Large fireplaces in the main downstairs rooms are
banked by glazed tiles patterned with green or golden
leaves.
Outside again, our guides pointed out features we
were to see in other Pond buildings. Quoins, ➤ 6
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