What Happened to the Potter Palmer Mansion in Chicago? 

When the Potter family rebought the mansion, upon demolishing the old mansion to build high-rise apartments, the land wasn't sold. The Potter Family Trust still retains ownership of the land and leases the land to the building association. The building association is a distinct legal entity which operates the new multi-unit building. The annual rent paid is part of the income of the Potter Family Trust. I know this as I was once an assistant curator at the Chicago Historical Museum. The Potter Family trust is a generous donor. Representatives of donor families attend an annual dinner party and they speak quite openly. Many former stately homes in Chicago’s Gold Coast which were demolished for high rises followed a similar plan. The land was kept and enrolled in a trust by the heirs who could not keep up the old homes. And now land rent paid by the high-rise occupant is part of the family trust income.

So sad such a beautiful building is gone. However, people like yourself keep the wonder, history and beauty alive, thank you.

What a beautiful house. Sorry that it was torn down. We are such a disposable society. Great video.

I wish this society valued old buildings more. I’d love to walk through this house!

Mrs Palmer was responsible for much development in the Sarasota , Florida area. The Historic Spanish Point Campus Nature Park and Preserve was part of her winter home and is a great place to experience some of the old Florida life in the early 1900’s. Another interesting video. Thanks again guys!

It's crazy the amount of money the wealthy had back then compared to regular people. My grandparents' entire mortgage on the house they bought in 1941 was $4,100. It did not surprise me that Bendix sold the mansion for the mortgage balance in 1930. The world had changed! My grandmother talked about "hobos" coming to the back door for whatever food people could spare. I recall seeing boxes with the Bendix logo at the brake shop where I used to take my classic Mustang. I am glad that the art collection (Wow!!) was placed with museums so the rest of the world could see it. I like the mix of house history & tours. :)

It's a crime that is was torn down! It was incredible and certainly worth saving!!!

What a shame. You’d never tear down something like this today.

It's a true shame the Potter Palmer mansion didn't survive until today, it would have made a great luxury B & B, a community center or art school? 🤔 Also was amazed to hear of such a valuable collection of art including Monets were inside, and without any real security system, while Bendix owned them? On my "bucket" list to visit Chicago, and will remember to look up pieces donated by the Palmer family at the Art Institute! 🤗

My grandfather was involved in the demolition of the Palmer mansion, sad. He had an eye for saving elements of the mansion left for the wreckers ball. As a child, I recall touring the mansion, big, with lots of dark wood and cold inside. My grandfather had a basement area filled with saved wall murals, knoll posts, woodwork, a built-in breakfront (Herter Brothers)…at his lake house, ten volume bound work of the Palmer history and two globe chandeliers (Tiffany Studios) which hang in my dining room, today.

Devastating to find out this masterpiece was demolished. On to the next! Love this channel. My favorite of all.

My great-great-grandma was a maid in this house. Wild.

Another glorious day for This House🥰

Thanks!! What an incredible house… You should come to Chile one day, despite the earthquakes, we have beautiful houses and palaces to visit.

The reality is that if you spend that much money on a mansion, not many people can afford or want all that upkeep, so it is destined to end up empty and rundown; that’s why there are so many abandoned castles in Europe.

In the fifties and sixties architectural significance carried very little weight. Fortunately, many examples of period architecture can be viewed on the near south side (think Prairie Avenue) and along King Drive and S. Michigan Avenue. A drive through Bronzeville and Kenwood can be a rolling history lesson.

As an owner of a (much more modest) semi-historical home built in 1891, hearing about these amazing mansions is of great interest to me. It is absolutely a shame that these beautiful buildings, built by the super wealthy, with no expense spared, too often had their lives cut short. Their immense size and the nature of their bespoke designs ends up being their downfall as fewer and fewer people seem to desire such structures or if they have the means to obtain one, would prefer that it be designed and built to their own highly specific tastes. I have made my own home my hobby, and maintaining its historical integrity and basic function is something I enjoy contributing to. Should I sell or inevitably cease to exist myself, my goal is that the house lives on and is left in such a state that it is less likely to fall victim to notions that its useful life would ever end. 131 years and counting.

A great video. Thanks for all the modern day money equivalents. What a fantastic house, it's too bad so much effort was just wiped off the map for an ugly high rise.

Why does Chicago have this yearning to tear down beautiful homes? I just don’t understand this.

The building pictured @4:13 is NOT what replaced the mansion. That is 1400 N Lake Shore Drive, built in 1927 and actually stood across Schiller from the mansion. The mansion was replaced by 1350-1360 N Lake Shore Drive.

Wonderful video! Love vintage things - houses, cars, music, and the overall look of where people dressed better than the event required. Keep up the fabulous work!

Even something this beautiful isn’t safe from greed

Bertha Palmer sounds like an amazing woman, especially for her time.

How beautiful and sad😢

All that architecture is simply beautiful! Thank you for the tour of this amazing mansion ❤

Her sons were VERY fortunate in unloading that monstrosity in 1928, immediately before the 1929 Crash. Wow!

Beautiful house. Great video, Thanks! U.S. Grant died in 1885.

I wrote the Wikipedia article about this place many years back. It's a beautiful mansion, such a shame it was destroyed.

Even if I had the resources I could not have built such a home, I do not think that grandly. Wonder how many generations of wealth are required to think that way? Glorious, its wonderful that it was built!

Everything was before federal taxes at the rate of today. 1913 was a pivotal time.

Please do more about Chicagos Gold Coast. So many beautiful homes still around like the once Playboy Mansion on State, the RH Gallery on N Dearborn and the famous Astor St!

Interesting, thank you.

Such a shame most of these grand houses never survived. All the time and money spent to build them just gone forever.

Such a shame it was lost.

What about a video of the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee? A must see while it is still there.

Awesome channel! Binging now!!

I love that you add in what amounts would be at today's economic rates, thanks...

What a breathtaking house to be lost. 😭

Really sux America is so huge & yet awesome structures like this are demolished well before their time has past, compared to much smaller areas in Europe where they last hundreds of years.

Wait...it started with a $90k budget and finished at $1m? That's crazy.

It kills me to see these magnificent works of art demolished to build high rises.😢

I feel that it's always a pity when these magnificent old mansions are torn down, but the reality is that the land (and related taxes) became way too valuable to not be utilized more efficiently. Note: Ulysses Grant's son Frederick was married to Bertha's sister Ida.

Awesome house

These videos are wonderful!!

There are some really cool historic mansions in Galveston, TX that are still standing, such as the Bishop's Palace... I toured it once. It would make a great video!

So many beautiful houses lost for modern ugliness!

We still have a lot of beautiful homes here. Some have been turned into separate apartments within the mansion but others are completely left as is.

My mother in law grew up with Clarabelle Palmer. My mother in law in still alive and talks about the elevators in the house.

Awesome video!

I hope they salvaged as much as they could. I hate to see homes like this demolished.

Ulysses Grant died in 1885 so the only way he could have visited the Palmer mansion for the World's Columbian Exposition would have been posthumously.

Fancy pulling it down, that would have been a part of history. Such a shame after all that work by crafted men who you don’t see today. Too sad.

The building that replaced it is definitely mid-20th century penitentiary style (ie: butt ugly). Tons of historic Chicago buildings were poorly maintained and had to fall sooner or later, but this one should have stayed.

What an absolute sin that building was demolished.

Sorry that it was torn down.

That's one construction estimate that was ultimately way off. I am sure there were once many stories told about how that happened.

So interesting that some of the mansions you highlight were demolished after 30 or 40 years. I have T-shirts older than that.

I was just wondering how they heated it in the brutal Chicago winter in those days…the family went to south Florida is how.

Thank you! Luvz your channel! You are The House Whisperer! ❤🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻❤🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻❤🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻❤🇺🇦❤

So they knocked down a historic mansion for shitty apartments? Unbelievable.

Thank goodness Mies showed up.

How sad this incredible mansion didn’t even survive 100 years. It appears to have been made of brick and/or stone? Such structures can begin to fail very abruptly if neglected long enough. Great video, as always.

Those Bastards, Huffed and Puffed and TORE MY DAMN HOUSE DOWN!!!

This was a wonderful video 😍🙌🏽 I wish you had more on Chicago, the architecture here is amazing. I had the chance to stay at The Palmer House Hotel before it was closed. I’m not sure if they’re still closing the hotel but it is a magnificent place. Please do a video on their Hotel. 🙏🏽

I just find it astonishing that so many men at their life expectancy old age build 3 year long mansion projects that so many died before finishing or soon after.

Wow! how can you destroy a piece of beautiful history just to build a stupid apartment building?

My mom was born in '31 and she told me that she went to school with the caretakers daughter and so she got to be in this house when she visited with her friend!

Hey, great channel! You just need a better mic setup for all your hard research. I reccomend getting a decent mid range USB mic, as they are easier to setup for optimal quality than an analog one. Also, don't forget to buy a $10 pop filter.

My employer owns a set of pocket doors to this mansion. They are on display at Heidelberg Hall in PA

It should be criminal to tear down those beautiful long houses.

I saw this house before it was demolished. Something to see

My Lord, that was beyond words. How have people ( not my human race ) become so cold crass and filled with greed for filthy lucre that they could destroy such a masterpiece? They might as well made a bonfire with all those paintings to roast hot dogs. If that Mansion was deserted and rotted away I could understand but the stupidity of wealthy people is truly beyond me . That home couldn't even be replicated today.

So sad…

A tragedy to lose that building. Thanks for posting this, I am moved to suscribe.

Would love to see more pictures of the inside

Demolished…💔

I have an Abstract of Title for my property that Mrs Palmer owned before it was developed!

What a shame.

Wow!

Wow! Such an amazing landmark destroyed for an ugly stack and pack!

You got the wrong picture of the apartment building that replaced the Potter Palmer house.

Where in Chicago was it? That needs to be a part of the video.

You don't mention the address of the mansion. I lived in Evanston for eight years, and I never knew it existed until I watched this video.

What a waste! It happened in NYC Vanderbilt mansion on 5th ave in 1920’s and widow Vanderbilt has too many houses and high taxes. It razed and the site is Bergdorf Goodman.

At the risk of being shot at, I would say that a house, or a mansion, is just that, a house, or a mansion. It's the people who live in it, that makes it a 🏡.

Why did you Americans tear everything down?! Look how Europe is preserved, in spite of two horrendous wars.

I wonder what happened to all the beautiful woodwork.

Is that address of the Palmer mansion stated anywhere here? I’m from Chicago but did not know about this building, its location or demise….bad on me!!

Why did they tear down that palatial castle?

A 90k budget that ballooned up to one mil holy smoke this must be one of the most over budget projects in history!

I was part of the crew that helped tore it down

Wrong. They tried to move it on boats across Lake Michigan in I think the late 40s to be a recovery center for WWII vets. Several of the boats went down in a storm so reconstruction stopped. They use to give guided tours of the remaining blocks at Van Buren State Park about 12 years ago. Many of the ruins are sinking into the dunes. If you snorkel near it there are a few remaining things from the wreck, but most are gone now. Thieves stole the life size statues and anything they could carry. When we were doing the tour with the park ranger, our tour group surprised thieves with shovels. There are some big blocks still there. Use to be fun to geocach with the kids there.

can you do some of the buildings in Victoria BC please?

please do historic mansions in other u.s. states

💔

Wow

You would think that those interested in the history of the building would have dismantled what they could to save architectural features of it to be used in other construction, but greedy developers wanted only to build multi story eyesores to line their pockets. Disgusting!

🔥❤️🔥

Some mansions are still around that the rich built long long time ago but those are far and few between it's hard to keep up places like that. And unless it has historical significance which some do more likely that they get torn down rehabbed into something else it's sad though cuz some of the greatest architecture in the world is right here even with all the modernism Of the 21st century

Do we know of any architectural remnants of the mansion that might have survived or been repurposed somewhere else?