Eliphalet W. Blatchford House, Chicago, Illinois, LaSalle Street Elevation and Partial Section
1873/75
Peter Bonnett Wight American, 1838-1925
LaSalle Street, 375 North
New York architect Peter B. Wight was one of the first to bring the High Victorian Gothic style from England
to the United States. Wight used this style for many early commissions, such as this house for industrialist Eliphalet Blatchford and his family, built just after the Great Chicago Fire. With polychromatic masonry, metalwork, and an asymmetrical form, this house would have stood out in Chicago as a bold hybrid of influences from 19th-century Great Britain and 15the-century Italy. Wight’s designs for the interior of the house also embraced the modern idea of gesamtkunstwerk, or cohesive design, with medievalinspired
schemes for woodwork, furnishings, and brightly colored wall papers.
Ink and watercolor on paper