Glessner House

Glessner House is recognized by its fortress-like exterior of rusticated pink granite, which stands in sharp contrast to the surrounding architecture of the Prairie Avenue Historic District. Completed in eighteen eighty-seven and designed by the architect Henry Hobson Richardson, the house was a radical break from the traditional, ornamental styles of the Gilded Age. While neighbors like the industrialist George Pullman lived in grand mansions that faced the street with outward displays of wealth, the Glessner family chose a design that focused inward, centering the home around a private courtyard to maximize light and privacy.