page_title: Harley Clarke Mansion
section_title: History and architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Harley Clarke Mansion / History and architecture
caption_attribution_description: Council ring on the right, lighthouse on the right, view of the side of the Harley Clarke mansion that faces the lake. Evanston, IL.
context_page_description: The Harley Clarke Mansion consists of a French Eclectic-style house and coach house located at 2603 Sheridan Road in Evanston, Illinois, adjacent to the historic Grosse Pointe Light and Lighthouse Beach on Lake Michigan. Cited as a contributing structure for the Northeast Evanston Historic District that Evanston established with the National Park Service in 1999, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  In 2016, Landmarks Illinois added the Harley Clarke Mansion to its list of most endangered historic places in Illinois.
context_section_description: Construction of the Harley Clarke Mansion, designed by architect Richard Powers, was completed in 1927 for Clarke, his wife, Hildur Freeman, and their two children, son John and daughter Hermena. Harley Clarke was a wealthy utilities magnate who had, at one time, simultaneously served as the president and treasurer of five separate subsidiary light, power, and gas companies. He was a part of the high-society of Chicago, having memberships to the Union League Club of Chicago and the Chicago Athletic Club, and serving as a promoter for the Shakespeare repertory at the Civic Theater. In 1930, he became the president of Fox Film. Clarke's fortune has been estimated at upward of $60 million
  The three-story, 16-room, limestone mansion was originally situated on nearly five acres of lakefront property landscaped by Jens Jensen, a Prairie School landscape architect, in collaboration with Alfred Caldwell. Amongst the elements of the landscape was an informal wooded landscape on the bluff down to the home's private sand beach. This wooded bluff featured grassy clearings, and a "Indian Council Ring" (the latter being a personal signature of Jensen's landscapes). While the landscape has since been changed, several features of the original design currently remain. This includes a hemlock-shaded pond with waterfall, a council ring, many terraces and pathways, as well as portions of the original plantings.
  The approximately 18,500-square-foot mansion includes seven bedrooms, a spacious glass conservatory, ballroom, basement rumpus room and coach house—as well as six towering chimneys, and a curving stair hall.
  The house itself was supposed to be modeled after sixteenth century English Tudor country homes. Its red Ludovici tile roof has been said to suggest some Norman influence. The house has Cotswold-style appearance due to its random-coursed ashlar masonry walls, which are adorned by both carved limestone and red sandstone trim.
  The house's chimneys tower above its roofline. The primary roofline of the house descends towards its lower levels through swooping eaves.
  The main portion of the house is laid-out on a north–south orientation, lying parallel to the lakeshore. At the house's northern end is a section that was originally built as a service wing. The service wing has a lower roofline than the main portion of the house, and was laid out perpendicular to the house (on an east–west orientation).
  The exterior of the house's main entrance is topped by a large statue of a flower bouquet. At the front of the house, ornamental lead rain gutter downspouts empty into ornamental semicircular metal cisterns. The home's main entrance hall is an elegant ovular wood-paneled space featuring a curving staircase, a fireplace. The entry hall has a view of Lake Michigan, visible through the tall windows of the home's east-facing bay-windowed sun porch, which is placed on a direct east–west axis from the entry.
  The house's principal spaces on its ground floor were placed in an ensuite layout along the back side of the house, giving them lake views. The interior vista of the house's north–south axis culminated with the dining room fireplace at its north end, 
  and on a door to the conservatory at its south end (which provided a view of year-round greenery to the home's principal spaces).
  At the south end of the mansion, there is a large, glass-roofed conservatory with stone and glass walls. The conservatory has canopied entrances at both its east and west face. These entrances are flanked with large, square limestone piers adorned by iconic capitals. These piers are topped by stone statues depicting large bouquets of flowers, similar to the statue atop the main entrance.
  To the west of the conservatory is a sizable coach house built in the same style as the main house.
  Upon the house's completion, it received a design award from the Evanston Art Commission. It was the last house of its size to be constructed in Evanston prior to the Great Depression.
  The Clarke family owned the house until 1949, when the Clarkes had to sell the house because of signi
caption: View of the rear of the house, seen from the wooded bluff
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