In 1907 Harold McCormick bought a
260 acre site, including a 70-foot bluff on Lake
Michigan in Lake Forest, IL. McCormick hired an architect named Frank Lloyd
Wright (b. 1867) to make a design, which was done. However, Wright was
dismissed when McCormick’s wife, Edith Rockefeller McCormick (the daughter
of John D.) decided to move in a different direction and create an Italian
style villa, the supreme style of the higher echelons of society. Perhaps
she had been influenced by Edith Wharton’s 1905 non-fiction book, Italian Villas and Their Gardens.
Charles Platt (1861-1933), an architect and landscape architect from New
Hampshire who had had his sketches of Italian Renaissance gardens
popularized in a 1893 Harper’s
Magazine and via his own 1894 book, Italian Gardens, was hired to execute plans for the house
and landscape. Harold McCormick wrote to Charles Platt: “Mrs. McC inclines to being partial to Italian style. Very glad
you’re coming.” (1908). Platt’s design resulted in Villa Turicum (built 1908-1918), an Italianate mansion with a
huge greensward entrance mall on the west and an intricate water chain
pouring down to the lake on the same axis to the east. Curving steps,
terraces, the water chain, and stone dolphins were all built into the
bluff, and the Italian influence even dated to the Roman Age: included in
the landscape was a Pompeian-red atrium with fountain. Not far away
Harold’s brother, Cyrus, was creating a very naturalistic, idealistic
estate: ‘Walden’ (named for Thoreau’s book), so two large themes in
American landscape architecture of the time were contrasted in these
neighboring estates. Edith and Harold divorced, and Edith spent most of her
time living in Chicago, where she entertained lavishly and supported the
Chicago Opera, James Joyce, and other causes. Villa Turicum, however, was always fully staffed. In 1932,
bankrupted by the stock market crash, Edith R. McCormick died $2 million in
debt. The house was long abandoned and demolished in 1965, and the property
was extensively sub-divided. But the water chain leading to the lake, has,
in the past three years, been marvelously restored by its current owners,
mostly from original stone found scattered on the bluff. The twin walkways
on either side now lead again to the lake’s edge, where a long tunnel (now
sealed) once led to an elevator that carried guests back up to the house
from the beach, where a swimming pool was located. A lily pool to the south
of the mansion has also been restored (though not the lilies), although the
sunken gardens formerly surrounding the lily pool are now gone. Charles
Platt often worked in collaboration with Frederick Law Olmsted’s sons, John
and Frederick, Jr., who continued their father’s design business. Following
Villa Turicum, Platt created
master plans for PhillipsAcademy in Andover, MA (1922-1930), and the University of IL at Champaign-Urbana (1921-1933). Arthur Miller of the
Lake ForestCollege Library and I recently led a site tour sponsored by
the ChicagoBotanic Garden. It was great to feel the vision of Charles Platt,
and to see the grandeur and scope of his plan for an enormously wealthy
couple in the age before taxation. And one could also hear in the
background the words attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright, who grumbled that
Platt “was a very dangerous man — he did the wrong thing so well.” Both Villa Turicum and Walden are
important sites to preserve, part of our unique American landscape
architecture.
:: The Villa Exteriors ::
Villa Turicum, circa 1918
Eastern elevation facing Lake Michigan.
The Loggia
The loggia & terrace, with Janet Scudder’s 1910 Shell Girl fountain.
The first in a series of terraces and water elements to
the lake. This fountain features twin dolphins; with the SE (library)
corner of the house in the background.
View from the first terrace toward the beach and Lake
Michigan.
A reverse view from the succeeding terrace and the
beginning of the water cascade; this fountain with a pelican and twin
alligators.
Detail of the pelican and alligators.
Detail of the SE (library) corner.
Detail of the south front.
South Garden Elevation
South Promenade Terrace
South Promenade Terrace in 1928
Reverse view (south) of the promenade terrace, with the
Tea House in the distance.
View of the south garden parterres from the second floor
of Villa Turicum.
The lily pool garden in full bloom.
Herms in the lily pool garden.
North Interior Court
The cut-flower & vegetable gardens.
Aerial View of Villa Turicum
Villa Turicum’s neighbor to the
north, Walden.(The service court
and garages of Villa Turicum can be seen in the top portion of this
image, with the cut-flower and vegetable garden to the left)
Aerial view of the watercourse and eastern exposure. (The
lily pond and sunken gardens are visible at the top.)
Villa Turicum in 1930
A rendering dated April 28, 1918, by Schell Lewis, of
proposed wrought iron entrance gates for Villa Turicum.
My brother stumbled across the Villa Turicum website and sent it to our
entire family. I found it fascinating as we grew up in Lake Forest, first on Westleigh Road then later Mayflower Road. Anyway, we used to
play on the 'old McCormick estate' all the time. I am not sure what it
looks like these days, but I can remember the pool. It was literally in
the lake, yet still
had the shape. The pool house (I think that is what it was), that we were convinced was haunted. Although there
was graffiti everywhere, I could tell in it's
day was quite something as there were still remnants of beautiful
cornicing and high ceilings. I also remember the stairs leading down to
the
pool with the shells that were the trickling fountain. The main house was
completely gone yet there were still parts of the formal garden. My dog
once fell into the pond thinking the moss, that had covered the surface,
was
grass. I had often wondered what the main house looked like and thanks to
your website I now know it was everything I had dreamed it was, a grand
and glorious mansion. Also, there was a story about how before the main
house was finished a clairvoyant told Mrs. McCormick that if she spent
one night
in her new house she would never wake up alive. So rumour
has it she never spent one night in her new house, apparently she only
slept in the coach house…
CHICAGO
— Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick is the reincarnation of the first wife
of TutankHamen,
according to the "Chicago
Herald's" report of a fashionable dinner, where the former wife of Mr.
Harold F. McCormick made the revelation. Mrs. McCormick's experiences as a
wife of TutankHamen
were hardly less interesting than her experiences in her second
incarnation. Born the daughter of John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in
the world, she soon became the social queen of Chicago.
During the past eight years, Mrs. McCormick has lived most of her time in Zurich, Switzerland,
where she studied psychoanalysis.
