Potter Palmer Mansion
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- When Potter Palmer had his Early Romanesque/Norman Gothic mansion built in 1885, he established the famous Gold Coast neighborhood. Potter was responsible for much of the development of the neighborhood. What happened to his mansion? Find out what happened in today's video!
Location: Chicago, IL
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Fair-use Photos from: The Art Institute of Chicago artic.contentd...
Photos by: Jeremy Atherton, ajay_suresh
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Music by Epidemic Sound
So sad such a beautiful building is gone. However, people like yourself keep the wonder, history and beauty alive, thank you.
What a beautiful house. Sorry that it was torn down. We are such a disposable society. Great video.
😢😢☝️
It would be really cool if the house were still around. But I’m not too sad it got replaced with apartments in a big, dense city like Chicago. Much better than a parking lot.
@@claudiadarling9441 100% worth it. 1 family who sometimes lives in it vs a space converted into housing for 750 families. Cool house though.
To Ken of this house,
T here is a wonderful house the home of Henry Mercer in Bucks County in LA Haska, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Of course it's not as large as some of these shown in your videos.
It's very historical and was built by the man who lived in that part of Pennsylvania. Maybe you would be interested in doing a posting. Deb Klingler.
Cities don’t have space for frivolous endeavors like mansions
Mrs Palmer was responsible for much development in the Sarasota , Florida area. The Historic Spanish Point Campus Nature Park and Preserve was part of her winter home and is a great place to experience some of the old Florida life in the early 1900’s. Another interesting video. Thanks again guys!
Palmer Boulevard of course. And that's Historic Spanish Point. Can't even say it without all the words. Did you know she (credit actually belongs to the chef) created the dessert known as "brownies"?
When the Potter family rebought the mansion, upon demolishing the old mansion to build high-rise apartments, the land wasn't sold. The Potter Family Trust still retains ownership of the land and leases the land to the building association. The building association is a distinct legal entity which operates the new multi-unit building. The annual rent paid is part of the income of the Potter Family Trust.
I know this as I was once an assistant curator at the Chicago Historical Museum. The Potter Family trust is a generous donor. Representatives of donor families attend an annual dinner party and they speak quite openly.
Many former stately homes in Chicago’s Gold Coast which were demolished for high rises followed a similar plan. The land was kept and enrolled in a trust by the heirs who could not keep up the old homes. And now land rent paid by the high-rise occupant is part of the family trust income.
Thanks for the info.
My great-great-grandma was a maid in this house. Wild.
I wish this society valued old buildings more. I’d love to walk through this house!
Me too!❤️
Devastating to find out this masterpiece was demolished. On to the next! Love this channel. My favorite of all.
It’s really a great channel
It's crazy the amount of money the wealthy had back then compared to regular people. My grandparents' entire mortgage on the house they bought in 1941 was $4,100. It did not surprise me that Bendix sold the mansion for the mortgage balance in 1930. The world had changed! My grandmother talked about "hobos" coming to the back door for whatever food people could spare. I recall seeing boxes with the Bendix logo at the brake shop where I used to take my classic Mustang. I am glad that the art collection (Wow!!) was placed with museums so the rest of the world could see it. I like the mix of house history & tours. :)
Another glorious day for This House🥰
Yes sir!
Found this site today and it brings me a lot of joy but too much sorrow!
It can be a sad revelation most of the time!
Wonderful video! Love vintage things - houses, cars, music, and the overall look of where people dressed better than the event required. Keep up the fabulous work!
Thanks!! What an incredible house… You should come to Chile one day, despite the earthquakes, we have beautiful houses and palaces to visit.
All that architecture is simply beautiful! Thank you for the tour of this amazing mansion ❤
My grandfather was involved in the demolition of the Palmer mansion, sad. He had an eye for saving elements of the mansion left for the wreckers ball. As a child, I recall touring the mansion, big, with lots of dark wood and cold inside. My grandfather had a basement area filled with saved wall murals, knoll posts, woodwork, a built-in breakfront (Herter Brothers)…at his lake house, ten volume bound work of the Palmer history and two globe chandeliers (Tiffany Studios) which hang in my dining room, today.
What a shame. You’d never tear down something like this today.
It's a true shame the Potter Palmer mansion didn't survive until today, it would have made a great luxury
B & B, a community center or art school? 🤔
Also was amazed to hear of such a valuable collection of art including Monets were inside, and without any real security system, while Bendix owned them?
On my "bucket" list to visit Chicago, and will remember to look up pieces donated by the Palmer family at the
Art Institute! 🤗
Be sure to take the architectural boat tour.
@@2anthro
Already thought of that! 🤗
It's a crime that is was torn down! It was incredible and certainly worth saving!!!
There was a cleansing of great American buildings in that time period. It breaks my heart.
@@matthewklein9225 cleansing of old stuff in America post WWII several decades, asked some guy about it all, said nobody then really thought about it 😶
@@johnerwin9024 They had all grown up in the shadow of beautiful architecture and took it completely for granted. Pre and post WW2 construction methods are totally different. Everything is disposable now.
People have no appreciation for quality or history. I am amazed people are so stupid.
@@matthewklein9225 Nobody could afford the upkeep of the Gilded Age's self-indulgent toys.
These videos are wonderful!!
Awesome channel! Binging now!!
In the fifties and sixties architectural significance carried very little weight. Fortunately, many examples of period architecture
can be viewed on the near south side (think Prairie Avenue) and along King Drive and S. Michigan Avenue. A drive through
Bronzeville and Kenwood can be a rolling history lesson.
he's already covered those.
@@daschundloverable That's great, and I certainly didn't want to step on anyone's toes. Without saying so, my comment was
directed at Chicagoans and suburbanites who might be interested in seeing them but might be hesitant to drive
through those areas, though on a sunny day it's an interesting and generally safe drive. On top of all that, I simply
didn't know "he's already covered those".
As an owner of a (much more modest) semi-historical home built in 1891, hearing about these amazing mansions is of great interest to me. It is absolutely a shame that these beautiful buildings, built by the super wealthy, with no expense spared, too often had their lives cut short. Their immense size and the nature of their bespoke designs ends up being their downfall as fewer and fewer people seem to desire such structures or if they have the means to obtain one, would prefer that it be designed and built to their own highly specific tastes. I have made my own home my hobby, and maintaining its historical integrity and basic function is something I enjoy contributing to. Should I sell or inevitably cease to exist myself, my goal is that the house lives on and is left in such a state that it is less likely to fall victim to notions that its useful life would ever end. 131 years and counting.
Bless you and I hope you can save it
A great video. Thanks for all the modern day money equivalents. What a fantastic house, it's too bad so much effort was just wiped off the map for an ugly high rise.
Absolutely!
He left out the real ending. They tried moving it across Lake Michigan to be a recovery center for WWII vets I think. Anyway, the park rangers use to give tours of the ruins up in the dunes at Van Buren State Park.
Please do more about Chicagos Gold Coast. So many beautiful homes still around like the once Playboy Mansion on State, the RH Gallery on N Dearborn and the famous Astor St!
Even if I had the resources I could not have built such a home, I do not think that grandly. Wonder how many generations of wealth are required to think that way? Glorious, its wonderful that it was built!
Palmer was not born into wealth. He started off in 1852 with a simple clothing store catering to women, with innovative displays and designs. Just after the war he took in Marshall Field as a partner and eventually sold out to Field while retaining ownership of the building. He then built the Palmer House Hotel - You have got to see the Empire Room - and several other buildings along State Street. Interesting life he lived.
I wrote the Wikipedia article about this place many years back. It's a beautiful mansion, such a shame it was destroyed.
Wow! Thanks so much, love it 😊
What about a video of the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee? A must see while it is still there.
The building pictured @4:13 is NOT what replaced the mansion. That is 1400 N Lake Shore Drive, built in 1927 and actually stood across Schiller from the mansion. The mansion was replaced by 1350-1360 N Lake Shore Drive.
What a breathtaking house to be lost. 😭
The reality is that if you spend that much money on a mansion, not many people can afford or want all that upkeep, so it is destined to end up empty and rundown; that’s why there are so many abandoned castles in Europe.
Thank goodness in the UK we have The National Trust that preserves buildings of historic and/or architectural value. Also the National Hertage Society and Historic England buildings lists.
Its a shame the USA did not/does not lay claim to its heritage.
The magnificent 5th Avenue Golden Age Mansions. The Industrialists follies, the Art Deco movie palaces, Old Hollywood, Penn Station etc etc. The list goes sadly on and on.
@@talmadge1926 it's specifically because of the loss of structures like this, that we have similar services in the US now. The place was uniquely beautiful.
Interesting, thank you.
Even something this beautiful isn’t safe from greed
It was built on greed. How do you think the homeless felt about it?
@@653j521 true;(
Why does Chicago have this yearning to tear down beautiful homes? I just don’t understand this.
How beautiful and sad😢
I love that you add in what amounts would be at today's economic rates, thanks...
Bertha Palmer sounds like an amazing woman, especially for her time.
There are some really cool historic mansions in Galveston, TX that are still standing, such as the Bishop's Palace... I toured it once. It would make a great video!
The Bishop's Palace is on my bucket list! I've wanted to visit ever since I first saw pictures of it.
@@ThisHouse Its super cool!! You should definitely go!! Do a tour of all the Galv mansions.. I think u can buy package tickets and see multiples!
@@ThisHouse Both the Bishop’s Palace and Moody Mansion are phenomenal! And they survived the 1900 flood that wiped out so much of the island
Thank you! Luvz your channel! You are The House Whisperer! ❤🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻❤🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻❤🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻❤🇺🇦❤
This was a wonderful video 😍🙌🏽 I wish you had more on Chicago, the architecture here is amazing. I had the chance to stay at The Palmer House Hotel before it was closed. I’m not sure if they’re still closing the hotel but it is a magnificent place. Please do a video on their Hotel. 🙏🏽
He left out the real ending. They tried moving it across Lake Michigan to be a recovery center for WWII vets I think. Anyway, the park rangers use to give tours of the ruins up in the dunes at Van Buren State Park.
@@jamesdonovan5165 Really? I spent years studying architecture in Chicago in the 60's, architects Cobb and Frost were always on our residential lists. I never heard this story. A quick look at the construction materials would lead one to think that moving such a structure across a like such as Michigan would have been a fool's errand. Maybe that why all you saw were ruins.
@@denali9449 Yep. The park ranger was very detailed. Some of the foundation is still there. They stopped tours years ago. Probably because they have less staff and there's not as much left. I wouldn't be surprised at what people are not aware of. Most people never heard of Wickard versus Filburn, yet that did more to take away liberty in the USA than anything else. Or Convention of States right now is making huge progress in getting an amendment for federal term limits. This year alone we got 4 more states. We in the USA don't even operate under the original Constitution. In the early 1900s the senate ordered the Constitution Annotated be created and maintained. We don't know what we don't know. From things going on today, to 100 years ago.
@@jamesdonovan5165 Sorry - did not mean to send you off the deep end here. All I was curious about was the supposed moving of the Palmer Mansion to Michigan; an event for which, aside from your comments, I cannot find any supporting evidence. Not really sure what the price of wheat, federal term limits and the availability of an annotated constitution have to do with the mansion but I am sure they must.
@@denali9449 apologies accepted.
Her sons were VERY fortunate in unloading that monstrosity in 1928, immediately before the 1929 Crash. Wow!
I agree Delonjo-a monstrosity! An obscenity of riches. There are/were some beautiful mansions from that era, but this deformed hulk isn't one of them.
Awesome video!
Beautiful house. Great video, Thanks! U.S. Grant died in 1885.
Everything was before federal taxes at the rate of today. 1913 was a pivotal time.
💯
Right on.
That's when the secret coup took over America. Federal Reserve, Income Taxes, narcotics made illegal etc. All because of the secret Jeckell Island meeting of the Illuminati.
That is also around the time government recognized marriage as a taxing vehicle. Government should stay out of marriage. Historically marriage is a sacrement with Napoleon being the first leader who attempted to wrest it from the Church.
Awesome house
I feel that it's always a pity when these magnificent old mansions are torn down, but the reality is that the land (and related taxes) became way too valuable to not be utilized more efficiently. Note: Ulysses Grant's son Frederick was married to Bertha's sister Ida.
The building is valuable too. Its just valuable to the people who live in the area, not just some individual's pocket.
@@themysteriousdomainmoviepalace No one (not even the mayor of Chicago as an official residence) wanted this house, and the whole neighborhood went from mansions to high rise apartment buildings. You have to remember before the rise of the current crop of uber-rich, no one wanted these massive, highly taxed and expensive to maintain white elephants.
@@lj5801 Now lots of people want them. I know people who bought a mansion for next to nothing in the 60s and sold it for over a million in 1990 and moved to France. I lived there for a while. I loved it.
@@themysteriousdomainmoviepalace A doctor bought an estate in the next town to me in the 50's for $35K and turned the garage into a house that was sold to one of his relatives. His widow took 1/2 the property; built a modern house for herself; and sold the original without the garage on only 1/2 the land for $3 million! There was a time you couldn't give these away.
Really sux America is so huge & yet awesome structures like this are demolished well before their time has past, compared to much smaller areas in Europe where they last hundreds of years.
So interesting that some of the mansions you highlight were demolished after 30 or 40 years. I have T-shirts older than that.
Such a shame it was lost.
A tragedy to lose that building.
Thanks for posting this, I am moved to suscribe.
We still have a lot of beautiful homes here. Some have been turned into separate apartments within the mansion but others are completely left as is.
Such a shame most of these grand houses never survived. All the time and money spent to build them just gone forever.
He left out the real ending. They tried moving it across Lake Michigan to be a recovery center for WWII vets I think. Anyway, the park rangers use to give tours of the ruins up in the dunes at Van Buren State Park.
Wait...it started with a $90k budget and finished at $1m? That's crazy.
I hope they salvaged as much as they could. I hate to see homes like this demolished.
That's one construction estimate that was ultimately way off. I am sure there were once many stories told about how that happened.
My mom was born in '31 and she told me that she went to school with the caretakers daughter and so she got to be in this house when she visited with her friend!
Would love to see more pictures of the inside
Thank goodness Mies showed up.
😆 true.
Only insecure Americans copied European architecture. Read Homes of the Brave by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings.
I just find it astonishing that so many men at their life expectancy old age build 3 year long mansion projects that so many died before finishing or soon after.
So many beautiful houses lost for modern ugliness!
Repulsive, to me, that any human would build such a shrine to excess. Thank you for your show.
Fancy pulling it down, that would have been a part of history. Such a shame after all that work by crafted men who you don’t see today. Too sad.
Too much of history is being torn down. It’s there so we can learn and erasing it only removes it from memory which makes it easier to repeat.
I was just wondering how they heated it in the brutal Chicago winter in those days…the family went to south Florida is how.
How sad this incredible mansion didn’t even survive 100 years. It appears to have been made of brick and/or stone? Such structures can begin to fail very abruptly if neglected long enough. Great video, as always.
Hey, great channel! You just need a better mic setup for all your hard research. I reccomend getting a decent mid range USB mic, as they are easier to setup for optimal quality than an analog one. Also, don't forget to buy a $10 pop filter.
I saw this house before it was demolished. Something to see
My mother in law grew up with Clarabelle Palmer. My mother in law in still alive and talks about the elevators in the house.
Demolished…💔
How sad this was lost...
Sorry that it was torn down.
What an absolute sin that building was demolished.
The building that replaced it is definitely mid-20th century penitentiary style (ie: butt ugly). Tons of historic Chicago buildings were poorly maintained and had to fall sooner or later, but this one should have stayed.
It kills me to see these magnificent works of art demolished to build high rises.😢
Is that address of the Palmer mansion stated anywhere here? I’m from Chicago but did not know about this building, its location or demise….bad on me!!
Wow!
Why did you Americans tear everything down?! Look how Europe is preserved, in spite of two horrendous wars.
Where in Chicago was it? That needs to be a part of the video.
The gold coast.
Ulysses Grant died in 1885 so the only way he could have visited the Palmer mansion for the World's Columbian Exposition would have been posthumously.
US Grant's son Frederick married Bertha's sister Ida, so they all must have been acquainted.
Go back and listen to that segment carefully; He says that Grant visited the house and then without a breath mentions guests from the Exposition. I was thinking like you before listening again.
My Lord, that was beyond words. How have people ( not my human race ) become so cold crass and filled with greed for filthy lucre that they could destroy such a masterpiece? They might as well made a bonfire with all those paintings to roast hot dogs. If that Mansion was deserted and rotted away I could understand but the stupidity of wealthy people is truly beyond me . That home couldn't even be replicated today.
At the risk of being shot at, I would say that a house, or a mansion, is just that, a house, or a mansion. It's the people who live in it, that makes it a 🏡.
Those Bastards, Huffed and Puffed and TORE MY DAMN HOUSE DOWN!!!
Wow! Such an amazing landmark destroyed for an ugly stack and pack!
My employer owns a set of pocket doors to this mansion. They are on display at Heidelberg Hall in PA
What a waste! It happened in NYC Vanderbilt mansion on 5th ave in 1920’s and widow Vanderbilt has too many houses and high taxes. It razed and the site is Bergdorf Goodman.
I wonder what happened to all the beautiful woodwork.
So sad…
Wrong. They tried to move it on boats across Lake Michigan in I think the late 40s to be a recovery center for WWII vets. Several of the boats went down in a storm so reconstruction stopped. They use to give guided tours of the remaining blocks at Van Buren State Park about 12 years ago. Many of the ruins are sinking into the dunes. If you snorkel near it there are a few remaining things from the wreck, but most are gone now. Thieves stole the life size statues and anything they could carry. When we were doing the tour with the park ranger, our tour group surprised thieves with shovels. There are some big blocks still there. Use to be fun to geocach with the kids there.
It should be criminal to tear down those beautiful long houses.
Why did they tear down that palatial castle?
To make room for a vacant lot.
What a shame.
You got the wrong picture of the apartment building that replaced the Potter Palmer house.
So they knocked down a historic mansion for shitty apartments? Unbelievable.
I have an Abstract of Title for my property that Mrs Palmer owned before it was developed!
How fascinating!
Some mansions are still around that the rich built long long time ago but those are far and few between it's hard to keep up places like that. And unless it has historical significance which some do more likely that they get torn down rehabbed into something else it's sad though cuz some of the greatest architecture in the world is right here even with all the modernism
Of the 21st century
can you do some of the buildings in Victoria BC please?
please do historic mansions in other u.s. states
What was the exact Address of the House?
I'm so glad that we tore this house down (sarcasm) - tells our society how little we care about history in this country. We are such a disposable society that does not value workmanship/craftsmanship and history.
Do we know of any architectural remnants of the mansion that might have survived or been repurposed somewhere else?
A 90k budget that ballooned up to one mil holy smoke this must be one of the most over budget projects in history!
Wow! how can you destroy a piece of beautiful history just to build a stupid apartment building?
💔
Why did so many of these huge mansions resemble gothic castles from medieval life? Really I would like to know.