Who Was Carolyn Morse Ely?
Have you ever been in a mansion that has just two bedrooms and no hallways? Now’s your chance! One of Lake Bluff’s premier historic homes is on the Lake Bluff History Museum Holiday Home Tour on December 8.
In 1914, Carolyn Morse Ely commissioned architect David Adler to build her manor home in Lake Bluff. This was an unusual commission for a prominent architect of the era, given that the client was a divorced, single and socially prominent middle-aged woman.
Adler designed Carolyn’s home in the French style “for a woman living alone with many servants.” At 7,200-square-feet, it had ample quarters for the staff but no family bedrooms other than Carolyn’s and a guest bedroom located at the far end of the second floor. The residence included several very formal spaces for entertaining, reflecting her lifestyle.
Adler took inspiration from the Pavillon de La Lanterne, an 18th century hunting lodge on the grounds of Versailles in France. Carolyn’s commission incorporated La Lanterne’s “enfilade” style of architecture where interior doors are aligned with connecting rooms along a single axis, thus no hallways. It was an elegant home one room deep with sunlight flooding in from French doors. Carolyn retained Frances Adler Elkins, sister of the architect and a renowned interior designer in her own right, to collaborate on furnishing her new abode.
Carolyn would have been a woman accustomed to knowing what she wanted and getting it done her way.
Gertrude Carolyn Morse was born in Marquette, MI, in 1869, the daughter and only child of a wealthy Cleveland industrialist who moved to Chicago when he became president of Inland Steel, one of the world’s largest steel companies. In 1888 when she was 19, she married Arthur Ely.
Their son, Jay Morse Ely, was born a year later when the family was living at 297 Ontario Street in Chicago. In 1897, they designed a Tudor Revival mansion in Wheaton known as the House of Seven Gables, a wedding gift from Carolyn’s father.
The couple divorced in the early 1900s, and Carolyn disappeared from the Chicago social scene for many years, probably moving to Paris. (The photo is from her passport.) She returned to the U.S. just before the beginning of WWI.
When her father died in 1906, Carolyn was the principal beneficiary of his will. She was given a cash bequest of $100,000 ($3.5 million in today’s dollars), with two-thirds of the estate going to her and her son. “They are to receive the income from this until the boy, now 17, is 35 years of age,” according to newspapers. In 1927, when her father’s second wife died, Carolyn inherited Inwood, a plantation home near Thomasville, GA., plus all of its furnishings.
In 1913, the year her son got married, Carolyn purchased 17 acres of the Ferry Fields and Ferry Woods subdivision along what was then Sheridan Road at the south-east end of Lake Bluff. This was a prestigious address and her neighbors were among Chicago’s elite: Stanley Field, Harry Beach Clow, and A. Sprague III.
Adler sited the French Renaissance Revival mansion between two ravines and designed two gatehouses, called cottages, at the entrance to the drive. He also added an orangerie, a type of greenhouse or conservatory, to enhance the garden grounds.
Because of the World War, the mansion was not completed until 1923. Carolyn lived in one of the gatehouses until the main home was finished.
Carolyn did not live long at her country manor home; she sold it in 1928 and moved to an Adler-designed apartment on Aster Street in Chicago. She later moved to Lake Forest, living in a ca. 1927 Anderson & Ticknor French Country home at 380 King Muir Road, where she hosted debutante teas, engagement parties and other social events. A member of Onwentsia and Shore Acres clubs, she was prominent in North Shore and Chicago social circles, her name appearing in society articles with Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mr. and Mrs. Livingston Fairbanks, and the Frederick G. Wackers. Carolyn was a member of the Chicago Historical Society, life member of Antiquarian Society of Chicago, and a 50-year director of the Art Institute of Chicago. She died in 1954 at age 87.
When Carolyn left Lake Bluff for Chicago, she sold the Morse Ely house to DeForest Hurlburd, president of the Elgin Watch Company, and his wife. They lived in it until 1953. Hurlburd had the north wing with its tower moved directly across the lawn to the west and sold it to a friend.
Carolyn’s imprint on Lake Bluff architecture has extended into the 21st century. The five buildings on the original Morse Ely grounds — manor house, north wing, orangerie, and two gatehouses – are beautifully maintained private homes. The Morse Ely mansion and its six remaining acres are on the National Register of Historic Places.