Tree Studios, Annexes and Courtyard
- Architect
- Parfitt Brothers, with Bauer & Hill
- Year
- 1894
- Style
- Queen Anne
- City
- Chicago, IL
Tree Studios, at 601-23 N. State Street in the Loop, was built in 1894 by Judge Lambert Tree and his wife Anne as an artist colony. The Parfitt Brothers designed a three-story steel-framed building with a cast-iron arcade of storefronts at street level and Roman-brick studio floors above, lit by large windows. Tree's legal trust kept the building reserved for working artists until the complex was sold to the Medinah Temple in 1959.
the building
Cast-iron storefront arcade. The ground floor is wrapped in a cast-iron arcade designed as retail storefronts, a commercial base supporting the artist studios above.
Studio floor. The second story is faced in Roman brick and was designed specifically as artist studios, with large windows placed to flood the work spaces with natural light.
the style
The Parfitt Brothers, with Bauer & Hill, built Tree Studios in the Queen Anne style, giving the artist colony a residential, picturesque character distinct from the commercial towers rising around it in the Loop.
More on Queen Annesignificance
Tree Studios is a Chicago Landmark (L-196) and a National Register of Historic Places listing, designated in 1997. Judge Tree's trust restricted residency to artists until 1959, and residents over the decades included sculptors Albin Polasek and John Storrs, illustrator J. Allen St. John, and muralist Louis Grell, among many others.
nearby
- Medinah Temple
- Ransom R Cable House
- (Former) Chicago Historical Society Building
- St. James Cathedral, Chicago
- Boyce Building
- Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago