A
History of the “7331 N. Sheridan Road” Mansion (the “Shambala
Meditation Center”)
By
Susan Olin
The
mansion at 7331 N. Sheridan (currently the Shambala Meditation
Center) is a lovely, 95-year old, Prairie-school style home. It is
constructed with cream-colored brick and now colorfully-painted, wood
trim. This luxury home has large, lush green spaces for its
front-yard and side-yards. In addition, the home is surrounded by
many large, leafy trees. In fact, this is the last remaining Sheridan
Road mansion in Rogers Park south of Jarvis Avenue.
This
historic, beautiful home has a unique story and has served several
uses over its lifetime which many people remember. So why are we
throwing all this away? For an unsightly, 250-car, lakefront parking
garage with no setbacks? To be built by a billionaire who claims to
be a preservationist and who could readily repurpose this beloved
mansion given his other multimillion dollar projects? This makes no
sense. More . . .
Like
all the mansions on Sheridan Road in Chicago, the residence at 7331
N. Sheridan has a colorful and enlightening history. Truly, one
mansion can provide great insight into history. To start with, like
many pre-1920 Chicago residences, no building permit is on record for
7331 N. Sheridan, which would list the architect and construction
date. By 1914 however, commercial insurance maps show the home where
it stands today. Moreover, as early as June 1918, Chicago Tribune
articles report about the home’s original long-time residents.
It
appears then, that the 7331 N. Sheridan home was constructed about
the same time as the nearby 1915 Frank Lloyd Wright-designed “Emil
Bach home”. Indeed, the Shambala mansion helps “tell the story”
of the Bach house and why a Frank Lloyd Wright house is located here
on the Far North Side. The Shambala mansion, two blocks south, was
also a part of, and helps illustrate the early 1900s era when this
stretch of Sheridan Road was a posh locale like the North Shore is
today.
From
1918 through 1936, various Tribune articles refer to the
mansion’s primary residents, the Holsman family. According to his
1934 obituary, Mr. Hyman Holsman was a local philanthropist and a
jeweler by trade. Initially, Mr. Holsman owned a downtown jewelry
store located at 179 W. Madison. Eventually, he owned a store at 5 S.
Wabash, otherwise known as the “Jewelers Center” at the Mallers
Building. This is one the most famous addresses on the historic
“Jewelers Row” in the Loop. “Jeweler’s Row” is a group of
buildings which contained many silver and jewelry businesses starting
in the early twentieth century. These buildings are now a Chicago
Landmark District since 2003.
Mr.
Holsman resided in the home with his second wife, Nell, and their
three daughters, Hortense, Jeanne and Elizabeth. His first wife
passed away in 1911. He had an adult son, George, from this first
marriage who did not live there.
Also
according to his obituary, Mr. Holsman’s philanthropy included
active participation in several important Chicago institutions. He
was an early vice-president of the Edgewater Hospital at 5700
N. Ashland founded in 1929. This hospital, now closed, was one of the
primary hospitals in the area for many decades. (Hillary Clinton was
born there in 1947!)
Mr.
Holsman was a founder and treasurer of Temple Mizpah, a
synagogue at 1615 W. Morse, which is now the “Mision Cristiana
Elim” Church on the southwest corner of Morse and Ashland. Temple
Mizpah was one of the early, liberal, “Reform” Jewish
congregations in the city. (The other major Rogers Park congregation
founded at that time was the “Conservative” synagogue of B’nai
Zion at 1447 W. Pratt now the private “Lakeshore Preschool”.)
According
to the encyclopedic 1924 book by H.L. Meites, History of the Jews
of Chicago, Temple Mizpah was actually organized in 1919 in Mr.
Holsman’s home at 7331 N. Sheridan! The synagogue building on Morse
was constructed in 1924 to accommodate the congregation of 350
families. Sixty years later in the 1970s, the then smaller
congregation relocated to Skokie.
Mr.
Holsman was also a director of the Marks Nathan Jewish Home for
Orphans. The Marks Nathan Home opened in the Lawndale
neighborhood in 1912 during the height of the immigration boom in
America. At the beginning of the twentieth century in Chicago, many
poor West Side Jewish immigrants fell on hard times, or even
perished, and an orphanage was needed.
In
its day, this orphanage provided a very good environment for its
children, including music and Hebrew lessons as well as symphony and
theater excursions. Some of the famous people who lived there as
children include Elmer Gertz, the prominent constitutional law
attorney, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Gertz)
and Barney Ross, the famous Jewish boxer
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Ross).
Ironically,
also according to Meites’ 1924 tome, a well-known lawyer by the
name of Nicolas Pritzker was one of the founders and a longtime
advocate for the Marks Nathan Home. Nicolas Pritzker was Colonel J.N.
Pritzker’s great-grandfather and patriarch of the Pritzker family!
The book contains a photograph of the Marks Nathan orphanage home
dedication in 1912 with Nicolas Pritzker there. The book also
contains individual photos and biographies of both Hyman Holsman and
Nicolas Pritzker. Thus, it is quite possible that Mr. Holsman and Mr.
Pritzker knew each other.
One
Tribune article also indicated that Mr. Holsman’s son,
George, attended the aviation school at the Great Lakes military base
during World War I. Finally, in 1936 the Tribune reported that
Mr. Holsman’s daughter, Jeanne, eloped and married Philip Weintraub
of Chicago. Weintraub was a first basemen for the Cincinnati Reds at
the time and later played for the New York Giants. He became a
notable baseball player in the 1930s and 40s, a time when few Jewish
people had ever played in professional baseball.
Weintraub
has several impressive career statistics such as the second most runs
batted in (RBI) ever in a game at eleven runs! He first played for
the Loyola University baseball team in Rogers Park
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Weintraub)
and(http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/weintph01.shtml)
(photo included). Additional research is needed regarding the
occupants of the home after the 1930s.
 |
| The Camelot School (photo courtesy of RPWR HistoricalSociety) |
By
the 1970s, the 7331 N. Sheridan mansion was utilized as a children’s
daycare center, the Camelot School, for a decade and many
Rogers Parkers remember going there as children. In the 1980s, the
building was repurposed as an Illinois Masonic Hospital Women’s
Health Center. Thereafter, starting in 1996, the Shambala Buddhist
organization developed the popular meditation center that is there
today. However, the organization is now relocating to a larger space
in the West Loop. At the present time, the building is in great
shape, charming inside and out while still operating as the Shambala
Center.
Therefore,
it is clear that research into one mansion can open doors to the many
facets of history in a surprising and wonderful way. This one home
sheds light on the formative days of Chicago as a city at the turn of
the twentieth century. This was a time when great waves of immigrants
settled here and community members organized to establish the city’s
first businesses, hospitals, religious institutions, social services,
and even sports activities. It would be a horrible shame to lose this
gorgeous building that beautifies our landscape and its fascinating
history that tells us so much about ourselves.
Note:
To see additional Sheridan Road mansions of that era, download the
must-see “Book of the North Shore” published in 1910,
http://archive.org/details/bookofnorthshore00whit
. (Download PDF version to rotate view!!)
Also
Note: History of the Jews of Chicago by H.L. Meites, 1st
publication in 1924 by Jewish Historical Society of Illinois,
reproduced in 1990 by Chicago Jewish Historical Society.
