Hyde Park Stories: The Rosalie Villas

“Harper Avenue between 57th and 59th streets is best known now as the Halloween street, but it was once famous as the Rosalie Villas, a planned development created by Rosalie Buckingham (1860-1918). The Hyde Park trustees granted her the right to take what the grid called Jefferson Avenue, put a bend in it, and rename it Rosalie Court. The planned development included the Rosalie Music Hall, the Rosalie Clubhouse and the Rosalie Flats – there was no doubt who was responsible.

“Thanks to the PBS series, Rosalie Buckingham is more famous now as the wife of Harry Gordon Selfridge, the creator of Selfridges department store in London, but he wasn’t in the picture when she started the villas. Rosalie was born in Chicago in 1860 and, though Chicago was very small, the Buckinghams were already very rich. Her grandfather had the brilliant foresight to sign a 10-year contract as the exclusive grain elevator for the Illinois Central Railway. Rosalie’s father died young, which may have given her a greater sense of independence. She studied music in Europe and moved through Chicago high society.

“By 1880, Hyde Park village was still centered on the original Illinois Central stop at 53rd Street. The glacial silt meant the area was bad farmland, so most of the land was undeveloped and banked by speculators. U.S. Senator J. Frank Aldrich remembered arriving in Hyde Park village in 1880 to find that there were few buildings south of 55th Street. He recalled riding his horse south of 57th Street among the oak wood savannah, wildflowers and streams. Rosalie looked at that and had the foresight to see that change was coming.

“Sam Guard, the Hyde Park architectural historian, pointed out that these were modern houses at the time, ranging from Queen Anne woodwork to Arts and Crafts shingles. They had some of the earliest examples of the Chicago window (a large, fixed center window flanked by two smaller windows that could be raised) and bay windows to capture cooling lake breezes. Two of the houses experimented with clay tile. These were the tiles used to fireproof interior walls but bring a warm yellow glow to the exterior. The villas were billed as holiday getaways far from the stench and heat of the city, but almost all the residents were there year-round.” (Morse, Hyde Park Herald, 12/10/24)

Read the full story at Hyde Park Herald

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