• Deere-Wiman House
• About the Deere-Wiman House
• History of the Deere-Wiman House
• The First Owner of Deere-Wiman
• The First Lady of Deere-Wiman

• Butterworth Center
• About the Butterworth Center House
• The First Owner of Butterworth Center
• The First Lady of Butterworth Center

Architect of the Deere-Wiman House

William Le Baron Jenney

The Deere-Wiman House was designed by prominent Chicago architect William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907). Jenney, who was born into a family of shipbuilders in Massachusetts, was educated at Harvard University and in Paris, France, at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures.

Jenney served as an engineer in the Civil War, and designed fortifications at Shiloh, Tenn., and Corinth and Vicksburg, Miss. By 1868, he had formed a successful Chicago architectural firm, Jenny, Schermerhorn and Bogart, and had designed a Swiss Chalet style home with an open floor plan, years before Frank Lloyd Wright worked with the concept.

He also developed a reputation as a city planner. Working together with landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Jenney's firm created a plan for Riverside, Illinois. In Chicago, he designed West Parks, where boulevards connect an extensive system of parks. In Moline, Jenney designed Riverside Cemetery, the site of John Deere's final resting place.

Jenney is best known for his commercial buildings. His Home Insurance Building, built in Chicago in 1884, was one of the first structures to use a steel skeleton. This support system became the standard for American skyscraper design. The Manhattan Building, which also featured a steel skeleton frame, was the first to reach a height of 16 stories.

Sadly, the Home Insurance Building, Jenney's first steel-frame structure, was demolished in 1931. An enduring testament to its designer, the Manhattan Building still stands at 431 S. Dearborn in Chicago's downtown area.

Jenney's firm served as a training ground for a number of promising architects. For this reason, he is considered to be the founder of the Chicago School of architecture, and the father of the American skyscraper.