The Mr. J. William de Coursey O'Grady House is a historic house at 149 Kenilworth Avenue in

Kenilworth Kenilworth ( ) is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Warwick (district), Warwick District in Warwickshire, England, south-west of Coventry, north of Warwick and north-west of London. It lies on Finham Brook, a ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. The house was built on speculation as part of the Kenilworth Company's initial development in 1898; original owner J. William de Coursey O'Grady did not buy the house until 1901. Architect

Franklin Pierce Burnham Franklin Pierce Burnham (October 30, 1853 – December 16, 1909) was an American architect. He is best known for his collaborations with Willoughby J. Edbrooke, especially the 1889 Georgia State Capitol. Burnham was also named the Kenilworth Comp ...

, the company architect for the Kenilworth Company, designed the Neoclassical house; Burnham had previously designed the

Georgia State Capitol The Georgia State Capitol is an architecturally and historically significant building in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The building has been named a National Historic Landmark which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As t ...

and the Kane County Courthouse. While Neoclassical architecture was popular in commercial and government buildings, especially in the years following the

1893 Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

, it was not commonly used in houses, and there are few other examples of the style in Kenilworth. The house's design includes a symmetrical facade, four Ionic

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s, a

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...

lated

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

and

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

, and a

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

above the entrance. The house was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on December 12, 2008.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Cook County, Illinois Houses completed in 1898 Neoclassical architecture in Illinois Kenilworth, Illinois {{CookCountyIL-NRHP-stub