Pullman Tour Day – Custom bus route tour by Ronnie Frey of @doorwaysofchicago

Previously the Studebaker Carriage Co. Manufacturing and showroom building.

Converted into the Fine Arts Building – opened 1898

Studebaker Carriage Co Building

Opened 1885

Architect Solon Beman – Romanesque Style

Vertical Assembly Line Design

Turrets/Towers

Flags like Medieval Castles

Hooded Rooflines

Masculine

Rough Cut Stones

Fat/Squatty Columns

Lots Of Arches

Notice Auditorium Theatre not built to the south and no buildings yet to the north

Studebaker Carriage Co Ad.

Driveway Series – Lakeshore Drive Edition

Notice the cities where there were showrooms – they were Studebaker dealerships!

1951 Studebaker Champion Starlight Coupe – the Henry Ford. My 92-year-old mom was 23 when she drove this here in Chicago!

National Historic Landmark

Architect Louis Sullivan – 1889

Crown jewel in Chicago

Field Museum

Adler Planetarium

Shedd Aquarium

Soldier Field – Chicago Bears

Burnham Harbor – named after Daniel Burnham

Northerly Island – where Miggs Field used to be

McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America! Named after Robert McCormick a prominent member of the McCormick family and publisher of the Chicago Tribune.

The Cyrus McCormick family were early Chicago industrialists who made their fortune with the mechanical grainreaper in the mid to late 19th century.

South LSD was named Leif Erickson Drive in 1927 after the Norse explorer.

The entire road was renamed Lake Shore Drive in 1946

In 2021 it was renamed to include Jean Baptiste Point du Sable

1770 – First non-indigenous settler and credited with having founded Chicago

Farm, house, outbuildings and some orchards with apple trees

The store is located right where Baptiste’s. homestead was and now there are different kinds of apples there!

This is a flagship store that is all glass except for the roof which was deigned to look like the lid of a MacBook!

Kenwood boasts a plethora of amazing historic homes like this Gothic treasure.

Settled in 1850 by wealthy Chicagoans seeking respite from the increasing congestion of the city.

Kenwood is the home of former President Barack Obama.

Hyde Park is home to:

1893 Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair)

University Of Chicago

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House

Barack Obama Presidential Library

Griffin Museum Of Science & Industry – the only building left from the 1893 World’s Fair

Called the Palace Of Fine Arts at the fair and housed paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture and metal work from around the world.

Unlike the other buildings of the fair it was constructed with a brick substructure under the plaster/staff facade.

After the fair it housed the Field Museum Of Natural History which eventually moved to Museum Campus in 1920

A Caryatid is a stone carving of a draped female figure, used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek or Greek-style building.

Girls from Caryae were considered especially beautiful, strong, and capable of giving birth to strong children. A caryatid supporting a basket on her head is called a canephora (“basket-bearer”), representing one of the maidens who carried sacred objects used at feasts of the goddesses Athena and Artemis.

The first 120 cherry blossom trees in Jackson Park were planted in 2013 to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

Another 50 trees were added in the three years to follow by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Chicago in honor of their 50^th Anniversary

In 2024, 20 more trees were added, bringing the total to nearly 200.

The new center started construction in 2021 and is expected to open in 2026.

This will be the first fully digitized presidential library!

Architect: Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects of New York City and Chicago based Interactive Design Architects – joint leads.

There will be several other buildings on the site, also designed in geometric shapes.

The museum building will be the tallest at 180 feet high and will include educational and meeting spaces.

The other buildings, a library building and a forum building will be single stories.

The forum building will feature an auditorium, a restaurant and a public garden.

In 2018 the Chicago Public Library announced it would have a branch within the complex.

A fourth building has broken ground, designed by Moody Nolan Chicago and Renauld Deandre Mitchell. This will be the Program and Athletics building and will have a regulation size basketball court and other athletic facilities and community meeting rooms.

National Historical Landmark

Constructed in 1910

The Robie family: Frederick, Laura, and their two children, Frederick Jr., and Lorraine, moved into the home in May 1910, with all of the final details, including rugs and furniture, installed in January 1911.  Robie’s tenure in his home was short-lived, however. As a result of gambling debts that Robie unknowingly inherited from his father’s death (allegedly totaling roughly $1 million, or the equivalent of $27 million today!) and the deterioration of his marriage, Robie was forced to sell the house after living in it for only fourteen months.

Roman Brick – low and elongated

Horizontal mortar joints had to be thicker than the vertical ones!

Vertical joints had to use a different color mortar!

Frank Lloyd Wright designed home in Oak Park, IL – vertically oriented.

Japanese Pavillion 1893 World’s Fair

The Midway Plaisance at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago was a popular attraction, showcasing various cultural displays and amusements. Photos from the fair Photos from the fair depict the Midway as a bustling area with attractions like the Ferris Wheel and various cultural exhibits. It was a place where people could experience a “journey” through different cultures and amusements. 

The scale of the Ferris Wheel was insane!

The wheel was 264 feet tall (= 18 stories!) and illuminated by 2,500 Edison incandescent lights.

The wheel cost $380,000 to build and paid for itself by September 1, 1893

Cost for the ride was 50 cents so approximately 760,000 people rode in 5 months – that’s a little over 5,000 a day!

There were 36 passenger cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people, giving a total capacity of 2,160

View to the east from atop the Ferris Wheel

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

1928

Gothic

Considered to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the USA.

• Distant relative of U.S. President William Howard Taft.
• Lorado Taft’s 1903 book, The History of American Sculpture, was the standard reference on the subject for decades.
• Credited with helping to advance the status of women as sculptors.

Grave of Dexter Graves

One of the first 500 Chicagoans 

Opened Mansion House Hotel Downtown

First to have magician/fire eating/ventriloquist shows –

Charged 5 cents – later named “Vaudeville” French slang for “voice of the city”

Lowden State Park in Oregon, Illinois

Head Of Eternal Indian being restored

South side of the Art Institute Of Chicago

The original 65 foot high statue, constructed in 1893, stood in front of the Court Of Honor at the fair and was one of many marvels on the grounds.

Sadly in 1896, the statue succumbed to fire destroying it.

This smaller scale replica, standing at 24 feet high, was scuttled by the original sculptor Daniel Chester French, and constructed in 1918 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fair and the Illinois statehood centennial.

Father was an architecture buff

14 yo: apprenticed with architect Richard Upjohn in NYC

26 yo: (1879) designed a home for George Pullman in New Jersey / and redesigned his S. Prairie Ave home / commissioned to design the town of Pullman / moved to Chicago 

1879 – 1880 (1 year!) designed over 1000 homes, huge factory, enormous arcade building, a hotel, stables, a casino, a church, a school, a train station, a gas works building, market square and much more

1880 – 1884 oversaw the construction of the town of Pullman with most of it being completed by 1881 (1 year!)

Beman’s architectural style tended toward what we would describe as “picturesque eclecticism” with varied historical details. Fashionable at the time, these styles included but were not limited to Gothic Romanesque, French Second Empire, Queen Anne and Arts & Crafts.

His contributions to Chicago’s architecture, particularly in his attention to detail and community-focused designs, left a lasting impact on urban development and industrial architecture in the United States.

Beman and Pullman deliberately chose materials and colors to reflect the ideals of order and industrial efficiency that the town represented.  This consistent color scheme extended across the workers’ homes, factory buildings, and public spaces, helping to unify the appearance of the town. 

The predominant colors were muted reds and dark browns, which came from the use of red brick and terra cotta for many of the residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. These earthy tones were complemented by darker accents, such as slate-gray roofs and trim, which added a sense of solidity and durability to the structures.

The greens of the surrounding parks and landscaped areas provided a natural contrast to the dominant brick tones, further enhancing the town’s carefully planned aesthetic. This palette contributed to Pullman’s image as a model industrial town with a clean, organized, and pleasing appearance.

Fashioned After Medieval Castles

Masculine

Heavy

Medieval

Rough cut stonework

Fat/squatty columns

Turrets and towers

Hood-type rooflines

Formerly Studebaker Carriage Company Factory and Showroom

Turrets/Towers

Flags like Medieval Castles

Hooded Rooflines

Masculine

Rough Cut Stones

Fat/Squatty Columns

Lots Of Arches

Hooded rooflines

Masculine

Heavy

Turrets and towers

Iron cresting

French Mansard roof

Slate stone roof tiles

Patterned/colored roof tiles

Dormer windows punctuating roofline

Flared out roofline “Ruffle” roofline

Seinfeld’s “Puffy Sleeves” of Kings Episode

Elaine: “This is gonna be the new look for the ‘90s.”

Seinfeld: But I don’t want to be a pirate! It’s a puffy shirt!”

Medieval Court Shoes – particularly the heel!

Led by Baron Haussmann

Commissioned by France’s Second Emperor: Napoleon III

A vast public works programme between 1853 and 1870

The street plan and distinctive appearance of the centre of Paris today is largely the result of Haussmann’s renovation. The Second Empire style was revived and its influences quickly spanned the globe!

Convex Mansard Roof – First popularized in France by architect François Mansart (1598–1666). The French government, during the second empire, did not tax the attic space so any rooms behind slanted walls were not taxed. 

Florence Lowden Miller Center – George Pullman’s Granddaughter

Historic Pullman Offices and Archives

Mansard Ruffle Roofline

Mansard Rooflines

Eyebrow Lintels

Dormers

Asymmetrical facade

Front facing gable

Covered Porches

Painted bannisters

Cedar shake siding

Fish scale patterns

Bay windows

• Front facing gable
• Covered Porches
• Cedar shake siding
• Fish scale patterns

Largest Homes and across street from factory

Romanesque

Queen Anne Shingle Style

Arts & Crafts – porches

Masculine

Splayed out base

Cedar Shake siding

Fishscale Design 

Exposed/Honest construction

Bannisters with geometric cutout shapes

Unique window compositions 

Decorative brackets

Honest construction in the gable bargeboard

Brackets

Bannister and upper apron cut out designs on the hotel veranda

Latticework

Scrollwork

Brackets

Beadboard

Newel Posts look like Romanesque towers and rooflines

Honesty in Construction

When the landscapers were doing the restoration of the grounds in 2021, they discovered these original rails

This is how they moved the rail cars they were building from one bay to the next.

Beman designed the factory in one of the first assembly lines (you thought it was Ford Motor Company!)

Everything about the design was thought out to make the operations as efficient as possible

These 90 degree tracks would be how the cars made it in and out of the bays.

First Bay – construction

Next Bay – painting

Next Bay – Upholstering

So on and So Forth

Pullman designed a Moveable Railway Transfer Table

Moved the cars in and out of the bays and then at a 90 degree angle to go from one bay to the next.

A newly built car frame on the transfer table

Being moved to the painting bay

Tasks were grouped in the factory for more efficiency

Precursor to the assembly line!

Romanesque and Second Empire

Open air hallway on the first floor where the merchant shops were located

Precursor to the indoor shopping mall which would not come for another 70 years!

First Floor open air shopping

Lots Of Iron work

Skylights

Industrial looking

Second floor bridges

Theatre

Library

Photo taken atop the Arcade Building

Market Hall

Jr Exec Homes

Greenstone Church

⛳ Harborside Fun Facts
Unmatched views of the downtown skyline—on a clear day, it’s postcard-perfect.
Features two 18-hole championship courses—Port and Starboard—designed by famed architect Dick Nugent, known for blending challenge with skyline views.

Owned by the City of Chicago and managed by KemperSports, making it a rare example of a municipal golf course that feels private.

The site was once part of a landfill and industrial shipping zone, transformed in the 1990s into a green, rolling golf destination. Chicago: the city that really knows how to reinvent itself.

Inspired by traditional Scottish links courses, Harborside has rolling fairways, tall fescue, and very few trees, which means your bad shots get zero privacy

Harborside, the only golf course in Illinois where your ball could end up in Indiana!

Harborside’s so scenic, even your bad shots look good on Instagram.

Architectural Photography Prints

Doorways Of Chicago Coffee Table Book Launching in 2026 – Trope Publishing

Route 66 Content Coming Soon

Social Media Creator Services

Walking Tours and Private Tours:

Art Deco / Oldtown / Wicker Park / Ravenswood Manor / Graceland Cemetery / Fine Arts Building

I’m taking my tours abroad! My curated trip to Peru launches in 2026. Architecture, Ancestry & Ancient Doorways: Peru with Ronnie. tourhero.com

Professional Interior Design Services