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City Pushing to Save 130-Year-Old Gold Coast Home

By Paul Biasco | October 17, 2013 11:07am
 Mayor Rahm Emanuel submitted a proposal to designate landmark status for the Warner House at 1337 N. Dearborn Pkwy.
1337 N. Dearborn Parkway
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GOLD COAST — The city is pushing to preserve a 130-year-old Victorian-era Gold Coast home by giving it landmark status.

The three-story Augustus Warner House, 1337 N. Dearborn St., was built in 1884 during the redevelopment of the neighborhood in the ashes of the Chicago Fire.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced an ordinance proposing the landmark status Wednesday, which would prevent the building from being demolished or having its exterior altered without review and approval from the city's landmarks commission.

The building is vacant.

The issue came to the city's attention when its owner, developer Bart Przyjemski, applied for a permit to demolish the building, according to WBEZ.

The home is an example of the "elaborate visual eclecticism" favored by Victorian Chicagoans in the late 1800s, according to a report filed to the city's landmarks commission in September of 2012.

The home's elaborate ornamentation remains intact and is considered an "exceptional example" of the type of the building Chicago's upper class was building in the Gold Coast at the time, according to the report.

The building was designed by architect L. Gustav Hallberg Sr., for publisher and merchant Augustus Warner.

The Sweden-born Hallberg designed a number of Gold Coast homes, including structures at 1433, 1439 and 1441 N. State Parkway.