The Hegeler Carus Mansion, located at 1307 Seventh Street in

La Salle, Illinois LaSalle is a city in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States, located at the intersection of Interstates 39 and 80. It is part of the Ottawa, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area. Originally platted in 1837 over , the city's boundaries have grown t ...

is one of the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

's great

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

structures. Completed in 1876 for

Edward C. Hegeler Edward Carl Hegeler (September 13, 1835June 4, 1910) was an American zinc manufacturer and publisher. Early life Hegeler was born on September 13, 1835 in Bremen, then a part of the German Confederation. He was the youngest son of Herman Dietrich ...

, a partner in the nearby Matthiessen Hegeler Zinc Company, the mansion was designed in 1874 by noted Chicago architect

William W. Boyington William Warren Boyington (July 22, 1818 – October 16, 1898) was an architect who designed several notable structures in and around Chicago, Illinois. He was also mayor of Highland Park, Illinois. History Originally from Massachusetts, W.W. Bo ...

. The mansion is now owned and operated by the Hegeler Carus Foundation, and is open to the public. It was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 2007.

History

Boyington, the architect who designed the mansion, is noted for the

Chicago Water Tower The Chicago Water Tower is a contributing property and landmark in the Old Chicago Water Tower District in Chicago, Illinois, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built to enclose the tall machinery of a powe ...

, the Joliet State Penitentiary, and for completing the

Illinois State Capitol The Illinois State Capitol, located in Springfield, Illinois, houses the legislative and executive branches of the government of the U.S. state of Illinois. The current building is the sixth to serve as the capitol building since Illinois was admi ...

. The interior was done by August Fiedler, who designed a unique parquet floor and hand-painted ceiling for each public room. The mansion, which has seven levels, has 57 rooms with a total of about 16,000 square feet of interior space. The Hegeler Carus Mansion was initially home to Hegeler, his wife Camilla Hegeler, and their large family. In 1887, Hegeler launched the

Open Court Publishing Company The Open Court Publishing Company is a publisher with offices in Chicago and LaSalle, Illinois. It is part of the Carus Publishing Company of Peru, Illinois. History Open Court was founded in 1887 by Edward C. Hegeler of the Matthiessen-Hegel ...

to provide a forum for the discussion of philosophy, science and religion, and hired the German scholar Dr.

Paul Carus Paul Carus (; 18 July 1852 – 11 February 1919) was a German-American author, editor, a student of comparative religion

to serve as managing editor. The company was located on the first level of the house. In 1888, Carus married Hegelers’ daughter Mary Hegeler, who had worked alongside her father as a young girl and was the first woman to graduate from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

with a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1882. The couple had seven children, six living to adulthood and raised them in the mansion. The mansion is where Carus wrote over 70 books, countless articles and served as editor of two scholarly publications, ''The Open Court'' and ''

The Monist ''The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was established in October 1890 by American publisher Edward C. Hegeler. History Init ...

''. Carus invited editorial contributions from the likes of

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

F. Max Müller F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic phil ...

and

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

. Carus hosted a historical meeting of

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

and

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

immediately after the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, bringing together eminent

Oriental The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...

religious scholars. This led to Open Court's publishing program emphasizing classics of eastern religious thought.

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

scholar

D. T. Suzuki , self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese-American Buddhist monk, essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in s ...

spent 11 years in La Salle working with Carus on this programme. Mary Hegeler Carus took over running the Matthiessen Hegeler Zinc Company from her father and also ran part of Open Court, eventually taking over as editor with Carus' death. Paul Carus died in 1919, and Mary lived in the house until her death in 1936. The house was occupied mainly by their children. In 2001, its sole resident was 99-year-old Alwin Carus, one of six children of Paul and Mary, who died in 2004.

Recent developments

In 1995, the Hegeler Carus Foundation was created. That year, the mansion was put on the National Register of Historic Places. In recent years, members of the Carus family and others have done much restoration of the mansion. On March 29, 2007, the Hegeler Carus Mansion was designated a

. In 2008, the foundation launched a project to reassemble the mansion's

gym A gymnasium, also known as a gym, is an indoor location for athletics. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term " gymnasium". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learning spaces in educational ins ...

nasium and its apparatus, considered to be a unique surviving example of a late 19th-century

turnverein Turners (german: Turner) are members of German-American gymnastic clubs called Turnvereine. They promoted German culture, physical culture, and liberal politics. Turners, especially Francis Lieber, 1798–1872, were the leading sponsors of gy ...

-style

physical culture Physical culture, also known as Body culture, is a health and strength training movement that originated during the 19th century in Germany, the UK and the US. Origins The physical culture movement in the United States during the 19th century ...

facility. The foundation also owns the Julius W. Hegeler I House, located directly across the street, which is undergoing restoration. In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, Hegeler Carus Mansion was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

Illinois component (AIA Illinois).

Current uses

The mansion hosts numerous public programs, and is open for public tours. It is particularly notable for its high Victorian stencils and wall and ceiling paintings, its woodwork, and its history.

References

External links

The Hegeler Carus FoundationHegler Carus MansionSociety of Architectural Historians SAH ARCHIPEDIA entry on Hegler Carus Mansion
{{National Register of Historic Places Houses completed in 1876 Houses in LaSalle County, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in LaSalle County, Illinois Second Empire architecture in Illinois National Historic Landmarks in Illinois Historic house museums in Illinois Museums in LaSalle County, Illinois Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Gilded Age mansions

History

Recent developments

Current uses

References

Further reading

External links