page_title: Robert Seyfarth
section_title: Notes on the pictures
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Seyfarth / Selected projects / Notes on the pictures
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of the second Robert Seyfarth house, Highland Park, IL. Robert Seyfarth, architect c. 1910
context_page_description: Robert Seyfarth was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois. He spent the formative years of his professional career working for the noted Prairie School architect George Washington Maher. A member of the influential Chicago Architectural Club, Seyfarth was a product of the Chicago School of Architecture.
context_section_description: 1.) The first Robert Seyfarth house. This simple Prairie School house was built while Seyfarth was still working for George Washington Maher. The older architect's influence is clearly evident here, down to the use of a Maher hallmark, the lion's head, which appear here as brackets to "support" the second floor sleeping porch balcony. Seyfarth had used this feature shortly before in his design for the cabinetry and fireplace for the Samuel Nickerson house (now The Richard H. Driehaus Museum) at 25 East Erie Street in Chicago, which Maher renovated for Lucius Fisher in 1900-1901. A 1904 photograph in the collection of the library at Lake Forest College shows this house with the apertures of the sleeping porch only screened in the manner of the front porch of his second house in Highland Park, suggesting that Seyfarth also intended this building's now-enclosed counterpart on the Ellis house in Beverly to be open to the weather, as was the sleeping porch on the Dickenson house in the Chicago neighborhood of Greater Grand Crossing (see item #2 below). The photo also shows Seyfarth's use of a striated pattern in the shingles on the roof that Maher would use in 1907 on the Henry Schultz house in Winnetka, Illinois and the Kenilworth Club (in Kenilworth, Illinois), and on occasional other projects over the years.
  The house could be a study for the Ernest J. Magerstadt house which Maher built at 4930 S. Greenwood Avenue in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago in c.1908. It appeared in the background of establishing shots in the 2011 New Line Cinema film The Rite, which starred Anthony Hopkins and Colin O'Donoghue.
  3.) H.C. Dickinson house. This is the first Robert Seyfarth house, writ large, in brick and stone.  Although the sleeping porch on the second floor has been enclosed in a manner not in keeping with the style of the house, this house is otherwise also very similar in composition to the John Ellis  house in Beverly Hills, Chicago (1908), which shows that Seyfarth, like many of his profession, felt free to copy himself to develop, refine or expand upon an idea further for another client when necessary.  Note that the house retains the wrought iron fence that appeared with it in the 1909 ad for the Stewart Iron Works Co. (see left).
  4.) Kenneth Bullard house. The house is shown here as it appeared in the November 1912 edition of The Canadian Builder and Carpenter magazine. The picture and accompanying text were included  under the heading "Two Prize Concrete Block Buildings – Editorial Correspondence" as a result of the house's having won a competition sponsored by the Ideal Concrete Block Machinery Company of London, Ontario and South Bend, Indiana. The house was described as "An Artistic Bungalow constructed of stucco and concrete block", and a brief description was given that included its dimensions, number of rooms and structural details.  It was noted that the house was completed for $6,500.  Today it is remodeled beyond recognition.
  5.) H.S. Crane house. Maher's influence is clearly still evident in the design of this early house.
  6.) Maurice Kozminski house. Legion of Honour winner Maurice W. Kozminski  was a mortgage banker with the Chicago firm Kozminski and Yondorf, and was the General Western Agent for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique from the age of 23 until 1916 when he was called to New York to assume the position of Director General of Passenger Traffic for the line.
  
  Pictures of the house appeared in Architecture magazine in 1917 and in The Architectural Record in October 1914. Here it was described as follows: 
  "...These [Midwest country] houses almost uniformly give the impression of being built for people of refinement who take a keen interest in making their homes attractive, and who have to that end sought the advice of competent architects. One of the most attractive of these houses is that of Mr. W.  [sic] Kozminski, at Highland Park, Ill. Its architect, Mr. Robert Seyfarth, has charmingly adapted the proportions and lines of an Italian villa to a contemporary American suburban residence; a form
caption: The second Robert Seyfarth house, 542 (now 1498) Sheridan Road, Highland Park, Illinois. 1911
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