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Chicago's Version of River Oaks


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If Chicago had a neighborhood that is the equivalent of River Oaks, the Gold Coast comes closest. It's just outside of the downtown core, and is the location of some of the area's most expensive homes. But architecturally, the two are very different.

Here are some pictures I took one day while admiring the homes. Some of these sell, even recently, for $20million+

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CarriageHouseoftheRomanCatholicArchbishopofChicago-ChicagoIllinois-May2008-ChicagoIllinois-May2008-004a.jpg

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ResidenceoftheRomanCatholicArchbishopofChicago-ChicagoIllinois-May2008-ChicagoIllinois-May2008-010a.jpg

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Thanks for the photos Ed.

When people see River oaks, they're usually dumbfounded by the land and the size of the homes here and (to them) SCREAM wealth. Do you get the same impression when taking visitors in that area, or similar parts in other cities?

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Nice pictures, I read recently that many prominent and/ or young architects flocked to the city, to help rebuild it, after a very large fire destroyed much of it.. Also, many modern architects left Europe during WW 2, for America, and Chicago, especially, because it was a place that welcomed their new structural design ideas.

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If Chicago had a neighborhood that is the equivalent of River Oaks, the Gold Coast comes closest. It's just outside of the downtown core, and is the location of some of the area's most expensive homes. But architecturally, the two are very different.

Here are some pictures I took one day while admiring the homes. Some of these sell, even recently, for $20million+

Nice pics! The last time I was in Chicago, I visited Hyde Park. It was nice (to me at least). If you could equate Hyde Park with any area in Houston, which one would you equate it to? I would say it's a mix between Riverside and West U, but I'd like to know what you think.

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When people see River oaks, they're usually dumbfounded by the land and the size of the homes here and (to them) SCREAM wealth. Do you get the same impression when taking visitors in that area, or similar parts in other cities?

The impression I get is that people equate a home's quality with the wealth of its owner. One measure of the quality of the home is the amount of excess land around it. These homes never had any excess land, with just two or three exceptions, they were all built shoulder-to-shoulder, because the value came not from the amount of land, but from its location.

So, while someone in River Oaks might put up a crappy McMansion on a ton of land, the opposite of that is to put up a beautiful home on a small plot.

Some of the homes in the pictures sell in the $10-$14 million range. But for that price you could also get a log cabin and several thousand acres of land in Montana. So, I guess the visuality of "wealth" is realtive.

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Nice pictures, I read recently that many prominent and/ or young architects flocked to the city, to help rebuild it, after a very large fire destroyed much of it.. Also, many modern architects left Europe during WW 2, for America, and Chicago, especially, because it was a place that welcomed their new structural design ideas.

Yeah, after Mrs. O'Leary's cow burned the city down, architects from around the world flocked in to rebuild the place from scratch. At the same time, Chicago was a very wealthy city, globally, even compared to London and New York, and so it had a massive art/architecture scene (and still is second only to the Louvre for impressionist paintings). With few restrictions placed on them, architects could try pretty much whatever they wanted, and so they invented the skyscraper and the Chicago Window, and tons of other innovations in design. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago, and it along with other institutions like IIT were very supportive of new architects, and in letting their faculty do a lot of practice designs on their grounds.

There's a reason that SOM is headquartered here.

Nice pics! The last time I was in Chicago, I visited Hyde Park. It was nice (to me at least). If you could equate Hyde Park with any area in Houston, which one would you equate it to? I would say it's a mix between Riverside and West U, but I'd like to know what you think.

I'm not familiar with Riverside, but I'd say that Hyde Park is more akin to the Museum District, especially since it's home to the University of Chicago.

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