Deep on the south side of Chicago, in the heart of the Beverly-Morgan Park neighborhood is the “Irish Castle.” Although called a castle, the Robert C. Givins House is technically Romanesque Revival in style. Romanesque Revival is a rare architectural style found in this south side neighborhood. but can be found in other parts of the city. The style was popular for only a very short period of time, between 1885 and 1890.
In the 1880s, a small number of Beverly-Morgan Park’s most successful entrepreneurs built large-scale residences to express their wealth and accomplishments. A select few chose the fashionable Romanesque Revival style, appropriate for its massiveness and monumentality. Site selection also was a factor for these important business leaders, who symbolically chose lots to construct their grand Romanesque Revival-style residences high upon the Blue Island Ridge. Those atop the ridge would later assume addresses along Beverly-Morgan Park’s premier residential street, Longwood Drive.[i]
Buildings in the Romanesque Revival style are always masonry, usually with some rough-faced stonework, marking their majestic presence in area streetscapes. Wide, rounded arches of Roman or Romanesque architecture are identifiable features of the style. Often, the arches rest on squat columns. Commonly exhibited is decorative floral detail in the stonework or sometimes on column capitals and deeply recessed windows. Stone as a building material was expensive, and as a result, the style was not a very common choice for residences during the period. Yet, the richness of high-quality stone appealed to owners who built homes to reflect their affluence.
Chicago’s Romanesque Revival architecture reflects the availability of stone products, which could be cut to specific sizes and dressed in polished or rough finish. Area buildings feature quarried stone from the nearby Des Plaines River Valley, southern Indiana, or regional brownstone deposits. All were transported into the city via its extensive railroad network. Des Plaines River Valley stone was marketed as “Athens Marble” and “Joliet Marble,” referring to the Illinois quarries in the towns of Joliet and Lemont. Bedford limestone was harvested oolitic limestone principally from the quarries near Bedford, Indiana. Brownstone, typically from Midwestern sandstone quarries like those near Marquette, Michigan, was less common.
Lemont limestone was particularly sought after for dimension stone since it was free from visible fossil bodies, had a fine grain and standard color without streaks, and was found in layers thick enough to be cut into blocks. Stone from Illlinois’ Des Plaines River Valley was principally used in buildings in the Chicago area before 1890, when Bedford limestone became more favorable and competitively priced.
In the late 19th-century, the style was popularized by nationally-recognized architect Henry Hobson Richardson of Boston and is frequently called Richardsonian Romanesque. The first of his buildings in the style was the 1880 rectory for Trinity Church in Richardson’s hometown. Richardson himself introduced the style to Chicago in 1885 in the Marshall Field Warehouse (demolished) and the John Jacob Glessner House. Considered his finest urban residence, Richardson’s powerful Glessner House design was finished on Prairie Avenue in 1887 for a farm implement company’s executive.
While the world-famous Glessner House was under construction on Chicago’s Prairie Avenue, another Romanesque Revival design was simultaneously being built in Beverly-Morgan Park at Tracy Avenue (103rd Street). Perched high upon the Ridge at 10244 South Longwood Drive is the Robert C. Givins House, built in 1887.[ii] Known locally as the “Irish Castle,” neighborhood lore pin points its inspiration to a castle Givins visited on a trip to Ireland that was along the River Dee between Dublin and Belfast. He sketched the castle and upon his return had a regal replica built on the Ridge.[iii][iii] Romanesque arches, rusticated stone elements, sizable corner towers, and a crenellated roofline mark the castle’s romantic design. For his new castle home, Givins spent the exorbitant sum of $80,000 for his distinguished home of Joliet limestone. Robert C. Givins (b. 1845, Yorkville, Canada – d. April 14, 1915, San Francisco, CA), was a prosperous real estate developer with Chicago-based E.A. Cummings & Company. The castle’s construction, believed to be a gift for his bride, was Givins’ key contribution to area real estate promotion and development. For real estate promoters like Givins, whose firm held real estate interests in Washington Heights, a quintessential palace of the rich would draw Chicago’s elite to the area. Precedent was already set by real estate tycoon Potter Palmer, whose own castle was constructed only a few years earlier on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive. Givins sold the home at the northwest corner of 103rd Street and Longwood Drive in 1909 after more than two decades of ownership. Since 1942, it has housed a Unitarian congregation. Today, the Castle is one of the area’s signature and most loved buildings.
Romantically-inspired castles of the 1880s still remain in other parts of the Chicago area. Be sure not to miss the Mark Dunham House, a French Norman-influenced castle in the western Chicago suburb of Wayne. Dunham built his home of Batavia stone with help from Elgin architect Smith Hoag in 1880-83. Dunham generated his wealth at Oaklawn Farm by breeding Percherons, popular French work horses in the late 19th-century. The Dunham Castle is part of an 11-building historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Beverly resident Robert Wagner authored the nomination.
[i] In the 1880s, Longwood Drive was known as Washington Avenue from 103rd Street (Tracy Avenue) to 111th Street (Morgan Avenue).
[ii]The Givins House was under construction in the building season of 1887 as reported in the Chicago Interocean, January 1, 1887, part 2, p. 22: “On the Dummy branch of the Rock Island Road is Tracey Heights, the home of R. C. Givins, of the firm of E. A. Cummings, who is building a beautiful, picturesque residence on the hill near Tracey Station.” Also, Chicago Daily Tribune, October 15, 1887, p. 8: “Washington Heights. More buildings have been erected in this suburb during the last season than for many years. Among the more noticeable are the massive stone castle of Robert Givins on Tracey avenue…”
[iii]Bellingham Castle in County Louth, Ireland has been suggested as the inspiration.