Tour Information

IMPORTANT:  The museums will be closed on Saturday May 19 and Sunday May 20, 2012 due to their proximity to the site of the NATO Summit.

Glessner House Museum offers guided tours of Glessner House (1886), a National Historic Landmark and Clarke House (1836), the City's oldest surviving building located in the adjacent Chicago Women's Park and Gardens. Tours are led by trained docents and last approximately one hour in each house.  All tours begin at our Visitor's Center located at Glessner House Museum and are timed so that the two houses may be toured back-to-back.

We are open year-round, except for major holidays

New Year's Day

Easter Sunday

Memorial Day

Independence Day

Labor Day

Thanksgiving Day

Christmas Eve

Christmas Day

Glessner House Museum
Wednesday through Sunday

at 1:00 and 3:00 pm

Clarke House Museum
Wednesday through Sunday

at 12:00 noon and 2:00 pm
(for further information on the history and architecture of the Clarke House, please visit www.clarkehousemuseum.org)

Glessner House Museum engages
diverse audiences in exploring urban life and design through the preservation and interpretation of the architecture of Henry Hobson Richardson and the historic home of John and Frances Glessner.

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Upcoming Events

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for more information

See end of list for recurring programs

Museums Closed

Saturday May 19, 2012
Sunday May 20, 2012

(due to NATO Summit)

Booksigning: The Pursuit of Lucy Banning

Tuesday June 5, 2012

A Walk Through Time

Sunday June 10, 2012

Vintage Car Exhibit and tours of historic "Motor Row"
Sunday June 24, 2012

Treasures from the Collection V

Thursday June 28, 2012

Tour to Morrison, IL
via motorcoach
Saturday July 14, 2012

Prairie Avenue Walking Tour

Sunday July 15, 2012

Lecture:  Weeping Sad and Lonely - Mourning Customs in Mid-19th Century America

Sunday July 22, 2012

Prairie Avenue Walking Tour

Sunday August 19, 2012

Tour of the Elks Memorial and Environs

Thursday August 23, 2012

125th Anniversary Gala
at Symphony Center

Thursday September 13, 2012

Prairie Avenue Walking Tour

Sunday September 16, 2012

White City Musical

Friday September 28, 2012

Clarke House Museum Family Day

Saturday October 13, 2012

Special Tours:

Open House Chicago 2012

Saturday October 13 and Sunday October 14, 2012

Landmarks Illinois Preservation Snapshot Lecture:

Glessner House at 125 - History and Preservation

Thursday October 18, 2012

Lecture:  Warder Bushnell and Glessner Company
Thursday October 18, 2012

Private Tour: The Warder Bushnell and Glessner Company Building (now the Glessner Center)
Saturday October 20, 2012

Lecture:  The Arts and Crafts Movement, by Alice Ireland

Thursday October 25, 2012

26th Annual Edgar Allan Poe Readings

Saturday October 27, 2012

Shadows on the Street: Haunted Tours of Prairie Avenue

Saturday October 27 and Sunday October 28, 2012

Glessner House Symposium -

Glessner House at 125: Richardson's Urban Residential Masterpiece Reconsidered

Saturday November 10, 2012

Clarke House Museum

Veterans Brunch

Sunday November 11, 2012

Virtuoso: The Life of

Clara Schumann

Presented by WomanLore

Sunday November 18, 2012

Museums Decorated for Christmas

Wednesday November 21 through Sunday December 30, 2012

Private Tour of the Newberry Library Art Collection

Tuesday November 27, 2012

125th Anniversary Dedication Dinner

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Christmas Candlelight Tours

Saturday December 8 and Sunday December 9, 2012

Christmas at Clarke House Museum

Saturday December 15, 2012

RECURRING PROGRAMS:

Clarke House Museum Historic Handiwork Circle
Last Thursday of each month, 9:30 - 11:30am
Starting May 31, 2012

Terrific Tuesdays
Every Tuesday,
10:00 - 11:00am

June 19 - August 7, 2012

Collections Cameo

by John H. Waters

William Pretyman, Designer of the
Parlor Wall Covering

Glessner House Museum parlor

The dedication of the newly restored parlor on October 14, 2011 gives us a chance to look at the life and work of William Pretyman, the artist who designed the room's wall covering.  Active in Chicago from the mid-1880s to the mid-1890s, Pretyman is now little remembered here.  In fact, he designed a number of significant interiors, several of them in buildings by his good friend architect John Wellborn Root of the firm Burnham and Root.

Pretyman was born in Aylesbury, England in 1849 and traveled widely in his youth, serving two years as an administrator in the British protectorate of North Borneo.  By 1882 he had settled in Albany and the next year he married Jenny Remington (of the Remington arms family).  In 1885 the couple moved to Chicago, where Pretyman quickly gained access to the upper echelons of Chicago society.  He would go on to design interiors for a number of Chicago houses and churches, among them the Glessner House, the MacVeagh House (also designed by H. H. Richardson), the 1888 interior of Second Presbyterian Church at 1936 S. Michigan Avenue, and The Church of the Atonement in Edgewater.


Second Presbyterian Church

Pretyman's designs for spaces in several Burnham and Root buildings were his most elaborate.  They included the banking room for the Society for Savings in Cleveland (1890), Charles Gossage & Co. a dry goods store in the first floor and basement of the Reliance Building (1891), and Willard Hall, the assembly room for the Women's Temple at the corner of Monroe and State (1892).  Of these interiors only the Society for Savings remains.  (See further information below).

In 1891 Pretyman was appointed Director of Color for the World's Columbian Exposition, but resigned a year later.  His vision was for a colorful fair, and he did not remain after it was decided to create a "White City."  Pretyman and his family left the U.S. for his native England in the mid-1890s, though he continued to exhibit his art work in this country until at least the early 1910s.  He died in England in 1920.


Society for Savings

SOCIETY FOR SAVINGS BUILDING

The banking room interior William Pretyman designed for Burnham and Root's Society for Savings Building in Cleveland is his only interior, other than the Glessner House parlor, known to survive.  The banking room fills most of the first floor of the building and, like the Glessner parlor, its walls are covered with stenciled decoration.  Pretyman also designed the elaborate leaded glass skylight for the space.

When the building first opened in 1890, the Chicago Tribune commented, "Mr. Pretyman has used much yellow in its color scheme, and the great room is like a golden burst of sunlight . . . (T)he effect of the whole is beautifully joyous and serene."

Today, thanks to the excellent preservation of the space, that effect can still be felt.

Through the Years with the Glessners

Journals courtesy of the Chicago History Museum

The Glessners Christen Their Home

125 Years Ago (1886-1887)

November 7:  The new house is being roofed - the outside brick work is done - and nearly all of the stone work.  The glazed brick is being set inside the house and barn.  A woman asked Mr. Cameron (construction supervisor) in our house last Sunday if Mr. Richardson was dead.  When he said "yes" she said, "I guess this must have killed him.

November 24:  (excerpt of letter from Ellen Mitchell) "But oh!   The house - what a beautiful creation!  Mr. Glessner and yourself deserve the homage of your grateful fellow-citizens for placing such an architectural treasure in their midst . . . I do not know the technicalities of architecture, but unity and harmony in any artistic work bring peace and comfort to my soul."

December 5:  I have been ill all the week . . . I have only been once out of the house since and that was to go to the new house yesterday - where I went up stairs for the first time.  The house is most beautiful and attractive in every way.

December 12:  John sent me a hurried note asking me to send the carriage to the Richelieu after Mr. and Mrs. (George) Shepley.  We arranged to call for them the next morning and take them for their first view of the house.  They were in raptures over it.  Mr. Shepley said we were the first clients he ever envied - but he would like to live in the house.  We left the carriage at 16th St. and walked down to look at it.  We took down champagne and Italian bread to christen the house and have our first meal there.
NOTE:  Architect George Shepley took over supervision of the construction of the house following the death of H. H. Richardson in April 1886.