Architect Homes: Arthur Swanson
While driving on I-90 near the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, maybe your eyes have quickly flashed to a fairytale-like structure peeking out from the side of the tollway. Located on the former grounds of the now-closed Wyndham Hotel and behind Hyatt Place at 6810 Mannheim Road, this storybook cottage was not built as a folly or what some people believe as a novelty restaurant. This little building actually predates the town of Rosemont itself.
Rosemont has always been a weird place. In the 1950s the marshy area had a total of 84 residents. Streets, partially unpaved and unlit, were lined with objectionable roadhouses, taverns, and nightclubs. Gambling and prostitution were very much a thing, dating back to the time when thousands of military personnel were working at the nearby Douglas Aircraft assembly plant during World War II. There were garbage pits stinking up the place (plus no sewer system so I can just imagine the smells). Neighboring towns like Des Plaines and Park Ridge had no interest in annexing it. “Who wants that mudhole?” but the Homeowners Association of northeastern Leyden Township was determined the small community could survive on its own. Rosemont was officially incorporated in January of 1956.
Putting the Daley Family to shame, the village’s dynastic politics are the stuff of local legend with Donald Stephens running Rosemont for 51 years (his son Bradley is now in charge). Chicago Outfit boss Sam Giancana was based in the Thunderbolt Hotel in the 1960s; that link led to Donald Stephens being tried twice for political corruption. He was acquitted in both cases. But the weirdest part? The Donald E. Stephens Museum of Hummels located in a strip mall at Higgins and Mannheim.
Before the odd and unsavory elements took over Rosemont, a handful of farms were scattered around what was then the northern edge of Leyden Township. By the 1880s trains and truck farmers would stop here to collect cow’s milk or onions and cabbage. With all the concrete and noise of present-day Rosemont, it’s hard to imagine this suburb as tranquil farmland. But that’s exactly what is was like when architect Arthur Swanson moved out here.
Born in November of 1906 to Swedish immigrant parents Paul and Ida Swanson, Arthur lived in Chicago before his family made their way to Maine Township. After his graduation from what is now the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1929, Arthur worked for prominent Chicago architect Nelson Max Dunning, best known for the American Furniture Mart and American Book Company. A founder of the Architectural League of America, Dunning was an active member of the architecture community and this possibly helped Arthur make connections. While Arthur started out doing residential remodelings (along with a church on the South Side of Chicago), he was later employed as an architect for International Harvester, Betty Crocker, General Mills, and the Universal Stove Company.
During the Great Depression Arthur Swanson built a two-story Tudor Revival-style architectural studio that served as a gatehouse to his ten-acre mushroom and evergreen tree farm. It sat perched atop a stone wall complex hand-built by Swanson himself. According to census records, Arthur Swanson’s father operated a greenhouse and worked as a mushroom grower. Arthur lived in this small building as a bachelor until his 1939 marriage, converting an adjacent aquarium factory into a gable-roofed house for his new family that included wife Jean and their five children Paul, Carl, Lynn, Carol, and Christine.
Arthur’s son Paul, who also became an architect and joined Arthur Swanson & Associates in 1965, remembers his dad’s “bachelor pad” as cozy inside with a built-in bed and cobblestone fireplace on the top floor with a dining room, kitchen, and mechanicals located below. Through the years Arthur added a clay tennis court, golf green, and a moat around an island with a connecting bridge. Locals thought his farm was a public park. But the Swanson family was soon surrounded by new development. The final nail in the coffin was a series of events between 1955-56. Nearby O’Hare Airport opened to commercial air traffic, which was soon followed by construction of the new tollway, splitting apart Swanson’s property. It was soon annexed by the newly incorporated Rosemont. The family moved to Park Ridge in the late 1950s; the land was sold to a real estate developer who used the gatehouse as a “honeymoon suite” for the new four-story hotel he built there. Ironically he hired Swanson to design it.
While Swanson became a product designer for Hammond Organs and an inventor of a golf club patent called Topliner, he also was a pioneer in suburban office buildings like the ones you see out by Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. He created the first airport-oriented hotel with the O’Hare Inn in 1959. Four years later he was named Motel Architect of the Year. Many of the tall commercial structures you see around Rosemont are his work. Swanson died at the age of 90 in January of 1997.
Today Swanson’s cottage, decrepit-looking and exposed to the elements, is lodged between two hotel buildings next to a rear parking lot full of rubble. Covered in vines, the 1930s structure appears to be in awful shape with cracks in the stonework and the wood showing signs of decay. The stone stairs are worn. But its historic charm shines through even as vehicles whiz by on the various highway interchanges and airplanes fill the sky. You can’t help but be captivated, noticing the half-timbering and wooden corbels and large stones set in the exterior walls. One detail now missing is the “S” emblem on the chimney, which probably stood for Swanson.
Situated under a direct flight path makes the surroundings even more surreal and depressing. It’s hard to believe this little building used to sit in the middle of a tree farm. When the Wyndham O’Hare hotel designed by Swanson closed in 2010, his ivy-covered stone “bachelor pad” faced possible demolition. Redevelopment plans in 2016 showed it would be replaced by a larger parking lot. While that proposal is currently stalled, developers now claim they hope to preserve this last remnant of Swanson’s farm. We’ll have to wait and see if that actually happens. Both Paul Swanson and Mayor Bradley Stephens would like to see the historic structure maintained by the new hotel. It would be a shame to lose the *only* interesting building in Rosemont.
UPDATE:
In late October 2022, seven months after I wrote this post, Swanson’s studio was demolished; its half-timbering, stonework, and other elements discarded into a dumpster on site. As soon as I noticed half of the building was gone when I was recently driving on I-90, I knew I had to make a detour to document what was left. It’s sad Rosemont has erased a tangible piece of its past, most likely the only interesting building that was left in this ugly suburb. Now Swanson’s whimsical tower will live only in our memories. I’ll think about it every time I pass by the Allstate Arena.
Sources:
dailyherald.com/article/20160516/news/160519102/
Glenview Digital Newspaper Collection
https://www.journal-topics.com/articles/architects-building-in-rosemont-makes-for-memories/
Village of Rosemont: Golden Anniversary by Karen Fishman
I cannot thank you enough for writing this article. Arthur Swanson was my grandpa. I grew up seeing this beautiful Tudor-style bachelor pad turned gate hose turned honeymoon suite all my life. I always thought it would be a part of my life. But, my last visit to Chicago at Christmastime, left me heartbroken. I can no longer pass by and see the beautiful stone and the upside down "S" that I had seen for years. I'm truly grateful that you cared enough to write about it.
Thank you for documenting its history and unfortunate destruction!