Our annual tour of Crab Tree Farm tour is always popular, and this year we have the opportunity to offer tours at three different times, 10 am, 1 pm and 4 pm on Saturday, September 27. Tickets cost $45 and are sold on a first-come, first-served basis. Space is limited and advance purchase is required. No refunds.
The docent-led tours visit several Crab Tree Farm buildings, furnished with primarily Gustav Stickley furniture and decorative arts from 1900-1920. Docents will provide information about Crab Tree Farm’s preservation projects and American and British Arts & Crafts collections, and participants are provided a look at the workshop of master woodworker and artist Mike Jarvi.
Crab Tree Farm is the crown jewel of the North Shore. It was built as a model dairy farm in 1911 for owners Scott and Grace Durand after a 1910 fire destroyed the property’s original farm buildings. The five barns and buildings were designed by Chicago architect Solon Spencer Beman, architect of Pullman Village. Fruit, vegetable and flower gardens and orchards were designed by landscape architect Jens Jensen but only partially executed.
Scott Durand was a sugar broker in Chicago while Grace managed the farm. She was a successful businesswoman who was trained in agricultural science and was well known for her modern methods of dairy farming. The dairy was operational until her death in 1948. The William McCormick and Helen Bowen Blair family owned the farm from 1949-1984, changing its function of a dairy farm to a hog and pig farm. The farm buildings have undergone extensive renovation since Durand and Blair ownership, especially in the past 40 years when the current owners transformed them into a private museum of Arts & Crafts furniture and decorative arts.
Click here to purchase tickets.