By John Hug, Class of 1999, and Maria Corpuz, Class of 1996
Editor’s note: John and Maria’s story originally appeared in CAC@Home. Docents and volunteers contributed twenty stories to CAC@Home this past season. In case you missed them the first time, we will be posting them on The Bridge in the following months. They are also available on the CAC website.
Wealthy industrialists who wanted to live near their South Side factories first settled into Kenwood in the late 1800s, filling the neighborhood with grand mansions. But one house stands out from the rest: the Modernist home of Gerald Gidwitz.
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Very timely posting. Crain’s has a story on its web site that the home was sold on April 16 for $2.95 million! The story also says that the architect, Ralph Rapson, moved to Minnesota where he was a prominent modernist architect.
Thanks, an interesting story, John. It might have been useful to add the address of the Gidwitz House, 4908 S. Woodlawn, although it isn’t difficult to find via Google.
BTW, Gerald Gidwitz may have been a “staunch conservative” politically, but his son Ronald seems to be a real piece of work
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-gidwitz-testifies-lawsuit-daley-center-0502-chicago-inc-20170501-story.html
Thank you for this story.
The architect, Raloh Rapson, who also was an important architect in the Minneapolis area, and was the dean of the University of Minnesota Scool of Architecture. In the 1980s hed designed Pick Hall on the UChicago campus, which ought to be (IMO) more prominently in the CAC tour.