The Downtown Mansions

May 14, 2007 (WLS) -- In the heart of the priciest real estate in downtown Chicago there is a row of historic mansions. They could have been lost to time or high-rise development but one man is on a personal mission to save them.

One of the buildings will one day be open to the public as a museum.

At the corner of Erie and Wabash is the Ransom Cable House built in 1882. Next door a house built in 1900. Kitty corner is the Samuel Nickerson house built in 1880 and next to that is the John B. Murphy Memorial building built in 1923.

They are nestled between high-rises, just two blocks off North Michigan Avenue.

It is now a busy, well to do neighborhood. But thirty years ago it was a run down side street. As a young man, Richard Driehaus used to park near here and walk up to rush and division for the night life.

"And when we parked, we parked around this building and I looked at this building and said this is a magnificent, interesting structure," said Richard Driehaus of Driehaus Capital Management.

30 years later, and by then a successful money manager, Driehaus bought the Ransom Cable house that had been built by a railroad tycoon in 1882. The historic building now houses the 24 hour trading floor for Driehaus Capital Management with $3-billion dollars under its control.

The building also houses some of Driehauses extensive decorative arts collection from Tiffany glass panels and lamps to statues and wall art. There is so much art that perhaps the most magnificent Tiffany window is in what appears to be a little used stairway.

Driehaus also bought the circa 1900 townhouse next door which now houses additional offices.

But a few years ago his interest moved across the street. A deal was struck. Driehaus could buy the Nickerson mansion if he restored the Murphy auditorium for the college of surgeons. The Murphy memorial, a near copy of a building in Paris has now been restored down to the last flake of gold leaf on the trim.

But the crown jewel is the Nickerson House.

"This was one of the first large mansions that was built after the Chicago fire and Mr. Nickerson..he had lost several houses to the fire," said architect Joe Antunuvich.

So Mr. Nickerson built what is described as the first fire proof house in Chicago. The skeleton is all masonry with the rooms built in what are essentially fireproof boxes. And then there's the marble. Eighteen kinds of marble. Neighbors called it the marble palace. But there is also wood. A different kind of wood in almost every room with almost everything you see having been hand carved. Each floor is unique. Each fire box unique.

"It is the last surviving and grandest example of this particular eclectic architecture in the country..and it was probably..when it was built..the grandest house ever built in Chicago," said Dr. Kirby Talley Jr., Dir. Driehaus Museum.

Dr. Kirby Talley says it is remarkable that this house was found in a condition that could be restored. Even some of the furnishings, sofas and chairs, are original. A Chinese urn was purchased by Mr. Nickereson at the Columbian Exposition of 1893.

The mansion is now being filled with the Driehaus decorative arts collection and by fall it is expected to be open to the public as a monument to the arts and architecture.

"Architecture can give back more than other forms. Its really one of the great arts," Driehaus said.

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