Nickerson House

What is Nickerson House?

The house is a grand city mansion on the Near North Side, close to the Magnificent Mile. The Nickersons hired architect Edward J. Burling, of the Chicago firm Burling and Whitehouse, to design it. Next door stands the classical Murphy Memorial Auditorium, added later by the house's second owner. Today the mansion houses the Driehaus Museum, named for Richard H. Driehaus, which uses the restored rooms to show off the design of the Gilded Age and the Art Nouveau period.

History of Nickerson House

Samuel M. Nickerson made his fortune in the fast-growing national banking business, and at one point he reportedly owned a larger share of national bank stock than any other American. The couple moved into their new house in 1883.

In 1916 a group of well-off Chicagoans bought the mansion and donated it to a medical organization, the American College of Surgeons, in an early example of saving a historic building. The college made it its headquarters and built the Murphy Memorial Auditorium beside it for meetings. When the college outgrew the house, it started leasing it to others in 1964. Investor and philanthropist Richard Driehaus bought the property in 2003.

Visiting Nickerson House: tips

To see the interiors, visit the Driehaus Museum, which operates inside the house. The Chicago Water Tower and the Loyola University Museum of Art are each about 0.3 mile away. Food and a hotel are within about 0.1 mile, and EV charging is about 0.2 mile away.