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Pleasant Home

Architect
George W. Maher
Style
Prairie School
City
Chicago, IL
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Pleasant Home, also known as the John Farson House, is a Prairie-style mansion in Oak Park designed by George W. Maher and completed in 1897 for banker John Farson. It takes its common name from its location at the corner of Pleasant Street and Home Avenue, and it ranks among Maher's significant early Prairie School commissions.

the building

The Mills Novelty connection. Farson sold the house in 1910 to Herbert S. Mills, owner of the Mills Novelty Company, maker of the Mills Violano-Virtuoso self-playing electric violin. Mills lived here until his death in 1929, and his family kept the house until selling it to the Park District of Oak Park in 1939.

the style

Maher was a leading figure of the Prairie School, and Pleasant Home is counted among his significant early Prairie houses, built the same decade the style was taking shape around Chicago.

More on Prairie School

the architect

George Washington Maher was a prominent Prairie School architect working in and around Chicago at the turn of the century; Pleasant Home, completed in 1897, stands as one of his notable early Prairie commissions.

significance

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 19, 1972, and, exactly 24 years later in 1996, was declared a National Historic Landmark. It passed from the Farson and Mills families to the Park District of Oak Park in 1939.

nearby

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