Nickerson House - Architecture

Architecture

The Nickerson House was designed by one Chicago's earliest prominent architects, Edward J. Burling of Burling and Whitehouse. In addition, three decorators were contracted for the interiors: William August Fiedler (1843–1903) and R. W. Bates & Co. of Chicago, and New York-based George A. Schastey & Co. The three-story, 24,000 square-foot Nickerson House was reported to be the largest and most extravagant private residence in Chicago at the time of its completion. (This distinction would be transferred to the Palmer Mansion on the Gold Coast several years later.) Nickerson spared no expense, spending $450,000 on the construction and decoration of his home.

The mansion's Italianate exterior is limestone and Ohio sandstone. Although elegant, the restrained design of the façade belies the wealth of detail found within. The house's interiors are decorated with a large amount of marble (17 types, giving it the nickname of the "Marble Palace"), onyx, alabaster, carved and inlaid wood, glazed and patterned tiles by Minton Hollins & Co. and J. & J. G. Low Art Tile Works, mosaics, and Lincrusta.

With a majority of its original features intact, the building today is a well-preserved example of the Aesthetic Movement as translated into the design of homes for wealthy Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is seen in the wide variety of highly ornamented styles stemming from Japanese, Chinese, English, French, Moorish, ancient Greek, Renaissance Italian, and other influences. With its profusion of motifs and materials, the Nickerson House is indicative of the Victorian love for display as well as the general architectural mood emerging in Chicago in the years before the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.