Mies van der Rohe Lived Here: A Vintage 2-Bedroom at 200 E Pearson in Streeterville
This 2-bedroom at 200 E. Pearson in Streeterville came on the market in June 2021.
Built in 1917, it only has 10 units with just 2 units per floor. There’s no doorman or parking but there is a full-time engineer.
And there is a sign in front of the building discussing the very famous architect who called the building his home.
From Chicago Apartments: A Century of Lakefront Luxury:
The ten-apartment residence bears Renaissance-inspired details that have variously been linked to the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the Palazzo Farnese in Rome.
The brown brick building, with cast concrete and metal trim, is locally celebrated as the home of Mies van der Rohe, who continued living there after completing and apparently briefly contemplating moving to his Lake Shore Drive Glass Houses a few blocks away.
Apparently even Mies liked classical architecture, at least to live in. The building was designed by Robert De Golyer.
This corner unit is a half floor residence with newer windows and hardwood floors.
It has a gracious foyer with 10 foot ceilings, wainscoting, and crown molding.
The living room has a gas fireplace and French doors that lead to the second bedroom.
There is a separate dining room as well as a guest room or office.
The kitchen has white cabinets, “high end” stainless steel appliances including a wine refrigerator and a breakfast bar.
The primary bedroom has built-ins, a walk-in-closet and laundry.
Both bedrooms are en suite.
There are stereo speakers throughout.
The unit has some of the features buyers look for including central air and heat and washer/dryer in the unit. There’s no parking but you can lease it around the corner at 221 E. Chestnut.
This building is across from the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Lake Shore Park and is near the shops and restaurants on the Mag Mile.
Originally listed in June 2021 for $799,900, it has been reduced to $724,900.
The listing says the assessments, which includes the taxes, are $2744 a month.
At 2185 square feet, is this a deal at this price?
Carol Collins at Jameson Sotheby’s has the listing. See the pictures and floor plan here.
Unit #4W: 2 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2185 square feet, co-op
- There’s no prior sales price as it’s a co-op
- Originally listed at $799,900
- Reduced
- Currently listed at $724,900
- Assessments and taxes: $2744 a month (includes heat, gas, cable, taxes, exterior maintenance, scavenger, snow removal, Internet)
- Central Air
- Washer/dryer in the unit
- Gas fireplace
- Bedroom #1: 18×14
- Bedroom #2: 18×12
- Office: 16×7
- Living room: 26×15
- Dining room: 15×15
- Kitchen: 25×10
- Foyer: 7×21
- Walk-in-closet: 5×6
Very cool place. So much more interesting than the mostly cookie-cutter places you see on here. Not sure why it’s sold — the high HOAs?
Historic experts: what is the purpose of those circular fixtures near the ceiling (for example in photo 9)?
This place is lovely. I would be happy to see that seated sculpture right on out the door … it is late-night terror inducing.
“what is the purpose of those circular fixtures near the ceiling (for example in photo 9)”
air conditioning vents.
I don’t mind that they stole the windows from the dining room, but to give them over to an under-fixtured closet/laundry?? Really???
And yes, I understand that the windows face north over the 201 Chestnut parking garage roof. Still.
Seems reasonable for the location and the size of the unit. If you live here, is it a requirement that your pinky sticks out when you sip your cocktail? 😉
Thank you @anon(tfo)!
This is a really nice looking unit, but this corner location would be a pass for me. There’s a lot of traffic here, doesn’t have the same quiet feel as some other blocks east and north from here.
This is lovely and perfect.
OK, since this is cribchatter, I have to note that the decor is not my style* (but you’re not buying the decor).
*I’m pretty sure I have the same bedframe, though. Mine is 30ish years old and every six months or so, I say to Mr. Madeline “we really need to get a new bedframe or headboard ro something, this thing is so old”.
“Mies van der Rohe lived here”
So he had the privilege of living in this gracious building and took in beautiful classic details daily, yet left us with a bunch of steel and glass monstrosities built on the quick and cheap with no character whatsoever.
Cool.
“So he had the privilege of living in this gracious building and took in beautiful classic details daily, yet left us with a bunch of steel and glass monstrosities built on the quick and cheap with no character whatsoever.”
Kind of ironic, isn’t it?
He designed buildings that even he didn’t want to live in. Still preferred the old classics with crown moldings.
KK, this is one of the other “small” vintage buildings that are out there similar to the one on Scott.
There aren’t that many out there.
Redfin shows the previous sales price.
Jul 15, 2015
Date
Sold (MLS) (Closed Sale)
MRED #08935402
$785,000
It sold before that for $740K in 2013
I have always found it hilarious that Mies never lived in any of the structures he designed, but instead finished his life in a decorative old 1920s vintage building that you’d think he’d despise.
Mind you, the units I’ve seen in this building, including pics of Mies’ unit as it looked when he occupied it, have far less decorative mill work than other buildings of this vintage. The decor of Mies’ own apartment was very spare and restrained.
But he clearly found this place a lot more livable than anything he built himself, especially his first “glass box” buildings, the notoriously leaky 800-889 N Lake Shore Drive, whose issues took years and many $$ to correct.
Excuse me, 880 N Lake Shore Drive.
The later towers at 900-910 N Lake Shore, built in 1958, are more attractive and comfortable, and have performed a lot better. You can see the difference in the HOA cost, which is substantially higher per square foot in the original 1952-vintage towers.
I try to appreciate this architect, but I just cannot love his work, and believe that his influence has been baleful, by and large, though some of his work is quite beautiful. But you can’t help but feel that he had immense contempt for the comfort and well-being of his clients, who he seemed to feel existed for no other reason than to make his great art possible, and his clients were required to demonstrate their advanced aesthetic sensibilities and devotion to his great work by submitting to wretched discomfort and inconvenience, down to every last piece of uncomfortable furniture, and at very steep cost. A photo of 6′ tall Edith Farnsworth trying to get comfortable scrunched up on a 4′ long daybed in the living room of the Farnsworth House,whose original furnishings were selected by the maestro himself, and which was built far too low on the lot to avoid the yearly flooding on the Fox River, against Farnsworth’s wishes and the advice of Mies’ own engineers, and that over-ran Farnworth’s budget by 75%.
What’s worse was the effect that Mies had on the culture of his field, and on the mentality of the people who commission and pay for buildings built by arrogant and often downright inhumane “starchitects” who, these days, state outright that their buildings are designed to unsettled people, to make them uncomfortable, whether they’re occupants, or passers-by who are stuck with the cityscapes they design. Or, as the late Tom Wolfe wrote in FROM OUR HOUSE TO BAUHAUS:
“O Beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, has there ever been another place on Earth where so many people of wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much architecture they detested as within thy blessed borders today?”
He doubted it and so do I, and I can’t help but wonder what he’d make of the twisted and torqued structures of an architect like Frank Gehry, whose twisted, torqued, absurdly anti-functional ready-made maintenance nightmare start falling apart almost the first day they’re occupied. There’s no way that form follows any kind of function in too many recent buildings. And it’s not just their owners and occupants who are stuck with them, but the people who have to look at them every day.
“Redfin shows the previous sales price.”
In co-ops, all the units have the same PIN number and routinely show up as “prior sales” as a list like this. There’s no way to know if the 2015 unit was this unit or another one.
Great observation, Laura. I couldn’t have said it better.
Well said Laura.
“ this is one of the other “small” vintage buildings that are out there similar to the one on Scott.”
Yes not too many left unfortunately and generally unaffordable to all but the very wealthy.
Sold for $705,000 on June 14, 2022.
East unit now available:
https://www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/200-E-Pearson-St-60611/unit-3E/home/184411040