McCormick House

McCormick House -- History & Background 2025 edition

· The original (1896…middle section) home is 129 years old.

· Built in 1896 by Robert McCormick’s maternal grandfather, Joseph Medill, for his daughter, Katherine McCormick.

· Medill was one of the nation’s most influential publishers in the 19th century. His abolitionist views led him to founding a new political organization devoted to the abolition of slavery in the 1850s, which he named the Republican Party. He purchased control of the Chicago Tribune in 1874 and ran it until his death in 1899. Under his leadership, He was elected mayor of Chicago after the Great Fire in 1871, and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, established in 1920, was named after him.

· Cost of the 1896 (15,000-sq-ft) home was $15,000.

· Medill died three years after the home’s construction, in 1899. Katherine gave the home to her son, Robert R. McCormick, in 1910. Robert lived in it from 1919 until his death in 1955.

· McCormick was editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune for 45 years. He served in World War I with the Army’s First Division, participating in the successful Battle of Cantigny in 1918. Upon returning from the Great War, the Colonel renamed his Wheaton estate Cantigny after the small French village where the battle took place. Previously, the estate was called Red Oaks Farm.

· A major expansion in 1935 added the East and West Wings. The renovation included the latest fireproofing technology: reinforced concrete walls and automatic fire doors.

· The current home is 27,000-sq-ft with 35 rooms and 12 fireplaces.

· Like Tribune Tower, Colonel McCormick’s workplace, some of the mansion’s exterior walls contain stones and bricks from significant sites, such as Lincoln’s original tomb, Appomattox and Fort Sumter.

· The East Porch is patterned after Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. The south porch mimics Montpelier, home of James Madison, father of the Constitution.

· Freedom Hall, the home’s library, consumes the East Wing’s first and second floors. The room features 22-foot walls paneled with Butternut wood and a hidden Art Deco bar.

· McCormick House’s book collection numbers 5,000 volumes.

· Below Freedom Hall is the Gold Theater, the Colonel’s private movie theater.

· McCormick and his first wife, Amy, are buried on the grounds, just east of the home.

· Fun fact: McCormick House has appeared in three Hollywood movies: A League of Their Own (1992), Richie Rich (1994) and Baby’s Day Out (1994).