Tree Studio Building and Annexes

	Tree Studio Building and Annexes
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	4 E. Ohio Street, Chicago, IL
Built	1894, annex: 1912-1913
Architect	Parfitt Brothers, annex: Hill and Woltersdorf
Architectural style	Queen Anne, annex: English Arts & Craft
NRHP reference No.	03000784
Added to NRHP	December 16, 1974

The Tree Studio Building and Annexes was an artist colony established in Chicago, Illinois in 1894 by Judge Lambert Tree and his wife, Anne Tree.

Tree arranged to have the original tree building constructed in 1894, designed by the architecture firm of Parfitt Brothers. The building is steel frames and two storeys high. The ground level is covered in a cast-iron arcade and designed as storefronts, while the second storey is covered in a Roman brick and designed to serve as artist studios with large windows to allow in natural light.^[2]

Tree created a legal trust which stipulated that only artists could live in Tree Studios. This trust remained in force until 1959 when the complex was sold the the Medinah Temple, with which the studio complex shared a block.^[2]

Some of the studio's residents include sculptors Albin Polasek and John Storrs; illustrator J. Allen St. John; muralist John Warner Norton; painters Ruth Van Sickle Ford, James Murray Haddow, and Pauline Palmer; and actors Peter Falk and Burgess Meredith.^[3]

Restoration of the property, guided by Albert Friedman, began in 2000 and included the building being listed by the World Monuments Fund.^[4] Friedman purchased the property in 2001, following which construction workers and artisans labored side-by-side, rebuilding Tree Studios by hand. Architectural details were re-created from surviving fragments in on-site woodworking shops.

References

^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23.
^ ^a ^b "Tree Studio Building". Chicago: A National Register of Historic Places Travel itinerary. National Park Services. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
^ "Tree Studios, Annexes, and Courtyard". Chicago Landmarks. City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development, Landmarks Division. 2003. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
^ "Tree Studios Medinah Temple". The Suites Collection. Friedman Properties. 2006. Retrieved 2007-07-09.

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References

See also