The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, housed in the historic Samuel M. Nickerson Mansion, open to the public on June 1, 2008, as Chicago’s premier cultural destination dedicated to the care and preservation of art and architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Standing amidst the high rise buildings of downtown Chicago, just west of the renowned Magnificent Mile, the classical three-story, 24,000-square-foot Nickerson Mansion survives today as a splendid relic of America’s Gilded Age. This landmark building, built between 1879 and 1883, features an eclectic mix of Renaissance Revival and Aesthetic movement design—intricate carved and inlaid wood paneling, 17 different types of marble in the main hall alone and a striking stained glass dome that rises 25-feet above the mansion’s first floor —making it a paragon of late 19th-century American architecture and interior design.
"Classicism has a mysterious power. The Museum will transport visitors to a Victorian era," said preservationist and philanthropist Richard H. Driehaus. "Good architecture brings pleasure. The Nickerson’s beauty is ineffable. This is a feast for the senses."
Period objects from the Driehaus collection will be displayed in the Museum to complement the original furnishings and interiors of the mansion. The collection represents over 30 years dedicated to preserving late 19th and early 20th century art, and includes one of the largest private holdings of work by preeminent American decorative designer, Louis Comfort Tiffany. The second and third floors of the building will serve as exhibition space for many of these objects.
The Nickerson Mansion, referred to at the time as “the marble palace,” was originally built as a residence for successful entrepreneur Samuel Mayo Nickerson (1830 – 1914) at a cost of some $450,000. Nickerson left Chicago for New York in 1900 and sold the house along with most of its contents to Lucius George Fisher (1843 – 1916), President of the Union Bag and Paper Company. In 1919, Fisher’s heirs sold the property to a group of one hundred prominent Chicagoans who donated it to the American College of Surgeons. Richard Driehaus acquired the mansion in 2003, with the intention of restoring the building as a museum. Between 2003 and 2008, the mansion underwent an extensive and meticulous restoration to return it to its former glory.
