… a private home which, better than any other possible selection, may stand as a representative of the new impulse now felt in national life. The country, at this moment, is just beginning to be astonishing. Re-cemented by the fortunate result of a civil war, endowed as with a diploma of rank by the promulgation of its centenary, it has begun to re-invent everything, and especially the house.

— Edward Strahan, Mr. Vanderbilt’s House and Collection, 1883

In 1879, Chicago banker Samuel Mayo Nickerson commissioned a new house from the architectural firm of Burling and Whitehouse of Chicago. Edward Burling (1819–1892), who held the distinction of being one of the city’s earliest professional architects, had previously designed the First National Bank building in Chicago, of which Nickerson became president in 1867. Burling’s junior partner, Francis Meredith Whitehouse (1848–1938), was the son of a prosperous New York family, and had studied architecture at the University of Göttingen, Germany. While Burling and Whitehouse served as the architects for the house, the responsibility for the elaborate interiors themselves was placed in the capable hands of a number of highly skilled decorators, William August Fiedler (1843–1903), and the firms George A. Schastey & Co. and R. W. Bates & Co. Read more.

… a private home which, better than any other possible selection, may stand as a representative of the new impulse now felt in national life. The country, at this moment, is just beginning to be astonishing. Re-cemented by the fortunate result of a civil war, endowed as with a diploma of rank by the promulgation of its centenary, it has begun to re-invent everything, and especially the house.

— Edward Strahan, Mr. Vanderbilt’s House and Collection, 1883

In 1879, Chicago banker Samuel Mayo Nickerson commissioned a new house from the architectural firm of Burling and Whitehouse of Chicago. Edward Burling (1819–1892), who held the distinction of being one of the city’s earliest professional architects, had previously designed the First National Bank building in Chicago, of which Nickerson became president in 1867. Burling’s junior partner, Francis Meredith Whitehouse (1848–1938), was the son of a prosperous New York family, and had studied architecture at the University of Göttingen, Germany. While Burling and Whitehouse served as the architects for the house, the responsibility for the elaborate interiors themselves was placed in the capable hands of a number of highly skilled decorators, William August Fiedler (1843–1903), and the firms George A. Schastey & Co. and R. W. Bates & Co.

The Nickerson House was built during a period in American history that has become known as the Gilded Age — a period demarcated by the close of the Civil War in 1865 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The term was coined by the novelist Mark Twain in his 1873 novel of the same name. As a new nation emerged from the aftermath of civil war, the country entered a period of unparalleled economic growth, taking its place on the world stage as a leader in industry and commerce. This was an era dominated by such illustrious names as Vanderbilt, Gould, Morgan, and Rockefeller, all entrepreneurial businessmen who would shape the face of modern America.

The Marble Palace, as Samuel M. Nickerson’s house became known, cost a staggering $450,000 to build and was the largest private residence in Chicago at the time of its completion. According to the Inland Architect of February 1883, the house “reached a standard of excellence never before attained in Chicago.”

In 1900, Nickerson left Chicago for the East Coast and sold his Erie Street residence to Lucius George Fisher (1843–1916), President of the Union Bag and Paper Company. Upon Fisher’s death in 1916, the house was put on the market. It was purchased three years later by one hundred prominent Chicagoans, who donated the building to the American College of Surgeons. In April 2003, the house was established as a museum by Chicago philanthropist Richard H. Driehaus. Between 2003 and 2008 the Nickerson House underwent a meticulous and extensive restoration to transform it into the Driehaus Museum.

Through historical photographs, newspaper articles, and other primary sources, the History section of this website serves to illuminate the lives of the original owners of the Nickerson House and the architects, decorators, and craftsmen responsible for its creation. Close.