Address: 955 North Lake Road

Year built: 1917

Architect: David Adler and Robert Work

Landscape architect: Adler and Ralph Rodney Root

Original owner: Charles Burrall Pike and Frances Alger Pike

Behind
the high brick wall on Lake Road is a magnificent Italian Renaissance country house with
a sunken garden fronting Lake Michigan. David Adler designed the house for Chicago businessman Charles B. Pike and
his wife, Frances. The house, finished
in 1917, is sited on the same lot as a previous Pike home (designed by Arthur Heun in 1905) that had been
destroyed by fire in 1912.

Charles B. Pike was a banker and real estate investor. He served as president of the Chicago Historical Society from 1927 to 1941 and played an essential role in the construction of the current Chicago History Museum building in 1932.

The
front and back of the Pike house have their own distinct welcoming experiences.
Where the entrance on Lake Street is measured and defined, the back of the
house, with descending gardens, once welcomed visitors off the lake. The Pikes frequently arrived from the city by
boat.

David
Adler created a unique entry off Lake Road with a 50-foot vaulted
walkway overlooking a perfectly square courtyard and a patio surface composed
of different colored Lake Michigan stones that form an “Adler” star. Inside, the home boasts a long gallery with
Tuscan columns, fifteen-foot ceilings and splendid views of the sunken garden
and the lake. Adler’s love of symmetry
is evident in the placement of the living and dining rooms.

The
lower level of the house opens to a sunken garden lined with sculpture and
interlocking yews. Landscape architect Ralph Rodney Root took David Adler’s
hand-dug lawn space and created a garden vista that includes the lake. (It took 100 men three months to dig the foundation for a sunken courtyard.) The path down to the water’s edge once led to
another formal garden.