Dr. George S. Isham Residence

< --Previous Up Next–>

Dr. George S. Isham Residence, Playboy Mansion, School of the Art Institute (Hefner Hall), 1340 N State Condos
Life Span: 1899-Present
Location: 488 N. State (Old), 1340 N. State Parkway
Architect: James Gamble Rogers

Chicago Tribune, February 17, 1899

DR. GEORGE S. ISHAM TO BUILD.
Plans a $50,000 Residence) in North State Street, Near Schiller.
Dr. George S. Isham is planning: to build a new residence to cost $50,000 in North State street, near Schiller, after plans by James Gamble Ropers, from Paris. Mr. Rogers is a son of J. M. Rogers of this city. The proposed site is a lot Dr. Isham recently purchased. The structure will have a frontage of sixty feet, Bedford stone on the outside, and the interior entrance will be finished in hardwoods. The entrance will be of mosaic. The general design will be in Louis X. style.

Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1899

DR. GEORGE S. ISHAM’S 5TEW HOUSE.
Fine Residence to Be Built in North. State Street Near Schiller. Dr.

George S. Isham is considering plans for a house which he will build in North State street, near Schiller. James Gamble Rogers, from Paris, is the architect. The general design which has been settled upon provides for a residence in the French style. The house will run back 70 feet from the street, forming an “L,” with a garden on the south side, to enable all the rooms to have sunlight. This garden will be laid out with, trees in geometrical forms in the French court style and will contain a fountain. The house will have a basement entrance in stone, with mosaic floor. The hallway will be finished in carved stone. The basement will be given up to Dr. Isham’s office, the reception-room, kitchen, and other rooms. The first floor above this will contain the living rooms, the next floor the sleeping rooms, and the fourth floor the guest rooms and servants’ quarters. The exterior construction will be of smooth dressed stone, with slate roof and stone chimneys, and the interior will be in hardwood throughout, the bathrooms being of tile and with mosaic floors. The cost will be $50,000.

Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1901

Dr. and Mrs. George Isham have moved into their new residence at 488 North State street. Mrs. Isham will give a reception on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 14, from 4 till 7 O’clock. ‘

Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, March 5, 1960

Hugh Hefner, pipe smoking editor-publisher of Playboy magazine and owner of the Playboy key club, lives in an 11 room bachelor apartment so lavish it would make his most sophisticated magazine readers turn green with envy. Of the innumerable conversation pieces in the apartment, the most spectacular is a kidney shaped tropical swimming pool. It was only after a lively hassle that Hefner convinced city authorities the pool was purely for personal use not for business and won permission to install it in his near north side mansion.

He is no expert swimmer, but poolside is a great place for relaxation after working hours, Hefner says. He’s an affable, likable chap of 34, without the flashiness in dress or manner one might expect from the originator of the Playboy trademark. There’s no doubt the pool adds glamor to the numerous parties he gives for visiting show celebrities.

Adjacent to the pool is a garage from where depending upon your mood you either may take steps leading to a cocktail lounge below, or slide down via a fireman’s pole. Located in what formerly was a grease spattered automobile service area, the lounge is on a level slightly below the bottom of the pool. A section of the wall between is glassed in the manner of an aquarium, permitting a view of swimmers and pool activities thru green-blue waters.

Contrary to belief of many who tune in Sunday nights to the Playboy Penthouse TV show, the setting for the program is not Hefner’s apartment, which occupies two floors of the 62 year old, four story mansion for which he paid $400,000 about a year ago. It is far more luxurious than the studio show setting and is often filled with a larger number of voluptuous show girls.

Built in 1899 for the socially and civically prominent Henry P. Isham family, the residence presents a sedately elegant facade. Within, a dark-red carpeted stairway leads to the living quarters of Hefner’s apartment. The third floor has smaller rental apartments

A 50 by 35 foot, two story high living room has hand carved walnut paneling, a hand decorated beamed ceiling, teakwood floors. and a marble fireplace, all imported from England.

Hefner is a collector of contemporary art, and his idea of dramatically combining the new with the home’s traditional backdrops may be seen in paintings, sculpture, and furnishings thruout the apartment.

What bachelor couldn’t be happy in surroundings like these? Hefner. a successful magazine publisher, bought this mansion for $400,000. His apartment is on the first two floors.

His newest and most valued art acquisition is a Wilhelm de Kooning painting, which the Art institute borrowed for its 64th annual American exhibit. It is earmarked for the luxuriously white carpeted, white curtained, light and airy sitting room of Hefner’s bedroom, suite. In the master bedroom, as in his library. are working desk, typewriter, dictaphone, and direct telephone lines to his magazine office and club.

Hefner, whose magazine and club have been subjects of heated controversy, borrowed $500 on his furniture in 1953 (his only car, a 1941 Chevy, was too old to hock) in order to start publication of the magazine.

He defines it as a magazine “not meant for family consumption—a magazine for an adult man, an imaginary, college educated single man, neither a wastrel nor a ne’er-do-well. “This isn’t everything in life.” he says, “this is the fun.”

Hefner was a 40 dollar a week copywriter at Carson Pirie Scott’s in 1950. From there, he went to Esquire magazine as a 60 dollar a week advertising copywriter. He started his publication when he was refused a five dollar a week raise at Esquire. He estimated last year’s gross sales for his ventures at approximately 6 million dollars.

Yes, he, too, considers it all incredible.

Chicago Tribune, March 27, 1960

Hugh M. Hefner, 33, publisher of Playboy magazine told the city zoning board of appeals, last week that he needs a swimming pool in the basement of his near north side home to help him relax from the rigors of his job.

Hefner wants permission to build the pool in his home at 1340 N. State st. “I don’t get to Miami as often as I’d like to and I believe the pool would furnish a way of relaxing without having to leave the city,” he explained. The board took the case under advisement.

Works Until Midnight
His attorney, Lester Rein wald, said Hefner has been working until midnight or often seven days a week for the past five or six years He said the pool offers the opportunity for Hefner to “get away from it all.”

Reinwald said the 32 by 12 foot pool is about half completed. He said both he and his client are sorry construction began before a permit was obtained. He said they were under the impression the permit had been obtained by the contractor.

Hefner said the pool will be completely indoors and can’t be seen from the outside. He said it is for his own personal use and can not be reached except thru his 11 room apartment on the first floor of the four story structure. There are 15 apartments on the upper floors.

City Refuses Permit
C. Logan McEwen, a board member, asked if the pool might eventually be used as television studio. Hefner chuckled and replied, “Frankly, that s the very thing I’m trying to get away from.”

Hefner was forced to go I before the board after he was refused a permit for the pool by the city building department. An accessory swimming pool is permitted in a residential area but the building department feared this might be a commercial pool.

Norton Smith, of the North State-Astor Improvement association, said his group didn’t oppose the pool if it was just for personal use. Nelson Forrest, executive director of the Greater North Michigan Avenue association, said, “This sounds like an accessory use that will come once in a lifetime.”

Other Board Action Samuel T. Lawton, zoning board chairman, said the case hinges on whether the pool will be a personal use for Hefner or a commercial enterprise.

Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1975

As of Sept. 1, Chicagoans no longer will be able to fantasize about what’s going on behind the doors at Hugh Hefner’s posh Playboy Mansion at 1340 N. State St.

Nothing will be going on there.

The prestigious State Street address “will be a mansion in mothballs,” closed on Sept. 1 and either sold or rented, Victor Lownes, senior vice president and director of Playboy leisure activities, said Monday night.

Lownes earlier this summer was summoned to Chicago from England by Hefner in an effort to revitalize Playboy’s sagging economic fortunes.

Since arriving. Lownes has begun trimming right at the Chicago headquarters, as he put it, “by getting rid of the potted plants and people behind them.” One hundred Playboy employes have been fired.

And, most recently, Hefner agreed with Lownes’ recommendation that the mansion built in ~~1903~~ 1899 and bought by Hefner in 1957 for $400,000 be closed Sept.

The handful of residents in the mansion which once housed three dozen guests at a time include a half dozen Bunnies and Lownes, who stays there when in Chicago. He jets back and forth from his own mansion near London.

“I’m evicting myself, you might say,” Lownes said. “We must accept the reality that Playboy is not getting the promotional value out of the house now that Hefner is not staying here.

“I think he was here about three weeks last year,” Lownes said. “Attention should be focused on the West Coast, where Hefner is setting up operations on a more day-to-day basis.”

Lownes denied, however, that Playboy was moving its center from Chicago. He said most top officials would remain here.

In addition to guest rooms, the mansion houses a swimming pool, an underwater bar, a games room, facilities for showing movies, a valuable art collection, and, Lownes said “a staff that far outnumbers the residents.”

Closing the renowned “after dark” site of parties for the beautiful people is designed mainly to eliminate the staff costs which are “just another luxury draining profits,” Lownes said.

Studies of property use after Sept. 1 are now being made, he said. Even if the mansion remains vacant for some time pending the decision, he said, “we will be saving money either by dismissing or relocating staff.”

Chicago Tribune, December 29, 1985

Historic mansions can be frozen forever in the era in which they were built. Or, they can keep pace with the times if they are continually recycled.

One prime example of keeping up-to-date is the former Playboy Mansion, now taken over by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and renamed Hefner Hall. One of the city’s famed residences, it was built for a socially prominent turn-of-the-century physician, Dr. George Snow Isham.

The four-story Victorian-style manorhouse at 1340 N. State Pkwy. was designed by James Gamble Rogers, an architect who aiso is known for his work on the Northwestern University campus in Evanston. Built in two stages during 1903 and 1914 at a cost of $100,000, the elegant 72-room brick-and-stone structure is surrounded by a high iron fence.

After Dr. Isham moved into his new home in the city’s posh Gold Coast neighborhood, it became a mecca for celebrities of that era. The Ishams entertained such guests as President Teddy Rootevelt and Admiral Robert Peary, the Arctic explorer.

The second floor ballroom was—and still is the home’s show[lace, with its marble fireplace imported from Italy, oak-paneled walls, inlaid teak floor, beamed ceiling and bronze chandeliers. Two stories high, 60 feet long and 30 feet wide, it was used by Miss Hinman’s dancing class, one of the city’s most aristocratic gatherings of young people, in the early years of the century.

The mansion was in tune with the times and with the affluence of that era.

But the good old days came to an end in 1926. Dr. Isham died and the home was sold to a contractor. The stock market crashed in 1929, the nation slid into the Great Depression and the mansion was recycled to reflect economic realities it was divided into apartments.

A period of abuse to the building followed and a general decline in its appearance. In the early 1940s, though, it was purchased for $35,000 by a Chicago parking lot tycoon, R.G. Lydy. His theory on acquiring real estate was: “Just shut your eyes and buy, and after a while you’ve got something.”

He recycled the mansion again, spending $175,000 to restore it to its original splendor. About 10 years later the house passed to the Podbilniak, family, who sold it in 1959 to Playboy Enterprises for $400,00.

What was to follow was the most draratic refurbishing of the house to date. As everyone knows, it became “Hef’s Hutch,” the home-office of Hugh M. Hefner, head of the Playboy empire.

More than $400,000 in improvements were pumped into the vintage mansion, bringing it up-to date and then some. The refurbishing and remodeling included an indoor pool with a waterfall and underwater bar, sun and steam rooms, bowling alley, game room, offices and dormitories for Playboy Bunnies on the upper floors.

Keeping pace with the times, the mansion was wired for the electronic age a closed-circuit television security system, a TV-taping center, a custor-designed stereo and a full-size movie projection sys tem were installed.

Hefner believed that a home, with the addition of entertainment equipment, could become a private world where the owner could both work and play. He lived that concept.

Like Dr. Isham before him, Hefner invited the rich and famous to his palatial pad. The star-studded guest list included Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Bill Cosby, Barbra Streisand, Sammy, Davis Jr., Sinatra, Lee Marvin, Melvin Belli, Rudolf Nureyev, Norman Mailer and many more.

An article with photographic coverage of the wild life at the mansion was published in Playboy in January, 1966. Bubbling with Bunnies and celebrities, it added fuel to the public’s fantasies about what was really going on behind the staid-looking, formal facade of 1340 N. State Pkwy.

The Playboy Mansion became a symbol of the 60s and its sexual revolution. The house not only kept pace with the times it also was on the cutting edge of the future.

In the early 70s, though, Hefner went west, moving into another castle, this one on a 5.5-acre site in the posh Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles.

The Near North Side house was maintained as a place for business functions and charitable activities, though Playboy considered selling it for about $3 million.

Then in August, 1984, Playboy Enterprises leased it to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for five years at $10 a year. “It is our intention to make a permanent donation (of the mansion) within that time,” said Christie Hefner, Playboy’s president and chief operating officer.

Prominent Chicago real estate executive Arthur Rubloff, a trustee of the Art Institute, was instrumental in helping to arrange the deal.

The Art Institute also bought the south addition to the mansion at 1336 N. State Parkway for $500,000.

The connection between Hefner and art has been long-standing. As a young man, he took a course in figure drawing at the Art Institute. Later, he filled the mansion with the works of such artists as Picasso, Pollock, De Kooning, Abbott Pattison, Frank Gallo, Franz Klein and LeRoy Neiman.

The recycling of the residence by the Art Institute included a $100,000 investment to make it usable as a school for 350 art students and a dormitory for 32 students.

Visiting the mansion today reveals many changes, as well as echoes of the past.

Needless to say, the gold plaque with the Latin inscription Non oscillas, noli tintinnare (“If you don’t swing, don’t ring”) is gone. The first floor game room that was once packed with pinball machines has been converted into a computer graphics lab. When the house was built, this room probably served as a greeting parlor. The school donated most of the pinball machines to youth groups in the Chicago area, but kept three of them. One machine was sold at a Fantasy Auction for $1,200.

The bamboo and-fishnet Tahitian-style swimming pool, once a focal point of fun at the mansion, is empty now. It was drained after an Art Institute school alum fell in during a tour. But it may get in the swim again.

Sue Haldemann, director of Hefner Hall, explained that the School of the Art Institute has few recreational facilities, so the pool could serve a useful purpose. A Splash Committee has been formed to raise money ($2,200 for repairs and chemicals and $8,000 a year for a lifeguard) to reopen the pool.

Haldemann said the two vegetation-covered “islands” in the pool aren’t just decorative; they conceal supports for the building. A waterfall used to conceal the entrance to a private grotto beside the pool.

Although the brass fireman’s pole that led down to the underwater bar has been removed, a stairway still descends to the depths. The dark, low-ceilinged bar was built in a space that originally was the grease pit under the mansion’s garage. The room, with its underwater view of the pool, may be used for student meetings.

The one-lane bowling alley has been spared. Though not functional now, it is hoped it can be reconditioned for use by the students. One gold-colored ball bears the inscription “Hef.”

Though Hefner was an avid games player, he was not a highly rated bowler, according to records found listing the leaders in all the games played at the mansion during the Playboy days.

“It was like a time warp from the 60s when we took over the building,” said Haldemaria. “We found bunny ears, silk pajamas, personal ncies from Hefner and the day-to-day butler’s records noting who was visiting the mansion and in what room.”

A new stairway goes up from the bowling alley to what used to be the old corporate offices. Then a spiral staircase ascends to the walnut-walled conference room, where Playboy executives met at the large, round table. In addition to use by the Art Institute, the room is now rented to firms for small business meetings.

The chandelier suspended above the conference table has a small hole in it with a concealed micro-phone. In one corner is an old reel-to-reel tape recorder (no longer used), a stereo, and a light table where Hefner and others viewed color transparencies for use in the magazine.

Nearby is his study, which has been converted into an apartment for visiting artists and faculty members.

The ballroom in the mansion at 1340 N. State Pkwy. is two stories high, 60 feet long and 30 feet wide. The site of many parties in the Playboy years, it is now used by the School of the Art institute for classes.

Through the former dressing room is a stairwav leading down to the so-called Roman bath, which was outfitted with a marble tub, a waterfall and a waterbed. The space. now houses a bike storage room.

Hefner’s old bedroom is surprisingly formal, with oak paneled walls, beamed ceiling and a fireplace guarded by two carved lions. His rotating, vibrating circular bed has, of course, been removed. Now this is a sitting room for students.

The office space in front of the building is where drawing classes are held. Subjects taught at Hefner Hall include: Anatomy Drawing, Figure Drawing, Art Survey of the 60s, Art Therapy, Film Theory and Analysis, 20th Century Fashion, Computer Design, Knitwear Design, English Literature and Essay Writing.

Classes also are held in the Red Room, which used to be one of the bedrooms for visiting celebrities, and in the spacious ballroom, which can seat 99 persons.

The two “knights” dressed in 19th Century reproductions of 16th Century Spanish armor may be relieved of guard duty at the entrance to the ballroom. The Art Institute has discovered that they are beginning to rust because of humidity. They will be reconditioned, sold or possibly displayed in the Art Institute.

In the Playboy days, the trap door in one corner of the ballroom could be lifted up to reveal who was cavorting in the grotto beside the pool below. This was not a Playboy addition to the house, though some people think it is, said Haldemann. When the house was built, the trap door opened onto a storage area beneath the ballroom.

A film buff, Hefner used to show movies in the ballroom on the oversized screen that dropped down from a concealed place in the ceiling. The ballroom is still a place where dramatic productions can be viewed including a recent play, an experimental film festival and regular film classes.

Students living in the coed dormitory on the upper floors pay month, meais not about $300 a included.

“We believe that our students are very fortunate to be able to utilize the resources of the School of the Art Institute while living in a major Chicago architectural landmark,” said Arthur W. Schultz, chairman of the board of trustees of the Art Institute.

But sometimes a landmark can be too famous. Curious passersby have been known to knock on the front door at all hours of the night, asking for tours of the mansion. While no house tours currently are being given, Haldemann said the Art Institute is considering the possibility.

“The demand for tours is certainly there,” she said..

Chicago Tribune, April 29, 1993

The curvaceous indoor pool with the little tropical islands and a hidden grotto, where bunnies cavorted and Hugh Hefner and his guests watched from an underwater bar—or from a hidden trapdoor above—will be gone.

But the 60-foot-long oak-paneled ballroom with its sumptuously carved arches, beams and columns will be restored to its original glory.

In other words, 1960s tacky will give way to turn-of-the-century elegance in the proposed conversion of the former Playboy Mansion at 1340 N. State Pkwy. to condominiums by LR Development, a North Side real estate firm specializing in renovations of classic buildings.

LR president Bruce Abrams said Wednesday that he has a contract to acquire the historic mansion from the School of the Art Institute, which got the building virtually free from Playboy Enterprises Inc. in 1984.

Closing will be within 90 days, Abrams said.

Abrams indicated he has agreed to pay something less than the asking price of $2.7 million for the 70-plus-room, 1903-vintage mansion, which has been for sale for about three years.

He said he plans $3 million more in renovations to turn the property into seven or eight condos ranging in price from $675,000 to $2.1 million.

The 7,490-square-foot, $2.1 million unit will occupy the entire second floor of the mansion, including the ballroom and what used to be Hugh Hefner’s bedroom suite, which contains an original fireplace adorned with carved marble lion heads.

The buyer of that condo will be “somebody who likes to entertain,” Abrams suggested.

Entertaining of one sort or another has always been a hallmark of the mansion. Designed by socially prominent architect James Gamble Rogers for society doctor George Snow Isham, it was built for about $100,000 in an ornate French style with a mansard roof and dormers lavishly decorated with urns and scrolls.

Theodore Roosevelt and Adm. Robert Peary were early guests, and the ballroom was lent for the meetings of Miss Hinman’s dancing class, where aristocratic pre-debutantes learned to waltz.

Like a few other Near North palaces, the building was subdivided and fell into decline after World War I and during the Depression. A parking lot tycoon bought and restored it in the 1940s, and a later owner sold it to Playboy for $400,000 in 1959.

LR Development’s Kerry Dickson (left) and Bruce Abrams stand in Hugh Hefner’s old bedroom, which they say will be a part of the largest condominium in the Playboy mansion.

For a dozen years or so, Hefner padded around in silk pajamas embodying sexual liberation, bunnies rousted the ghosts of the pre-debs, and the likes of Norman Mailer and Sammy Davis Jr. ordered room service in the opulent Red Room from the 24-hour kitchen.

But Heiner moved the party to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, and the mansion was donated by Playboy for charitable fund-raising events until the School of the Art Institute got it in 1984.

Given the august name of Hefner Hall—the plaque is still there—it was used for art student dormitories until 1990, when the school, unable to afford the upkeep, closed it and put it on the block.

Abrams said developers have heretofore been deterred by the challenge of creating enough units at the right price to make the deal worthwhile, particularly considering the need for parking space.

His plan is to excavate a ramp from the rear of the building into what is now the basement, which would be turned into 14 parking stalls, or two per unit. A front driveway now used for parking will become a garden.

The smallest unit will be about 3,500 square feet, and all the condos will have broad outdoor terraces, Abrams said.

Abrams is converting and renovating another historic Gold Coast property, the 1910-vintage Chandler Apartments at 33 E. Bellevue PI. He said the market reponse to the high-end condos at that building, which have been sold out, convinced him that buvers could be found for Playboy Mansion units.

Early neighborhood reaction to the project appeared positive. Ana Kenesick, president of the North Dearborn Association, which met with Abrams Tuesday night, said the plans for the underground garage and the garden in place of the present front driveway sounded particularly attractive.

Leave a Reply