Thomas W. Hinde House

 by: chicago designslinger

 [Thomas W. Hinde House (1892) Douglas S. Pentecost, architect /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Douglas S. Pentecost could be described as an everyman architect. He never designed or built anything that received much attention, but he had a productive putting-the-food-on-the-table career, drawing-up plans for 2 and 3-flat apartment buildings across the city. Every now and again a single family residential commission came his way, and one, the most frequently mentioned, showed-up in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood in 1892.

  [Thomas W. Hinde House, 1412 N. Astor Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The client was Thomas W. Hinde a Kentucky distiller, who came to the bustling city of Chicago in 1887 and made a fortune selling spirits. Hinde lived with his wife and children in a multi-family townhouse on nearby on Division Street, and with his business booming, decided to make Chicago his home and asked Pentecost for a house on a lot he'd just purchased on Astor Street. The neighborhood was beginning to fill-up with homes of the wealthy and a variety of historical styles were being used to dress-up the facades. Pentecost seems to have found some of his inspiration in far away Flanders since the exterior of the Hinde house had the look and feel of a city dwelling you might find on a street in Ghent.

  [Thomas W. Hinde House, Gold Coast National Historic District, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Inside the first floor was taken up by an immense entry hall with a large fireplace, molded wood paneling, and a bench seat running under the leaded-glass windows in the bay. By 1909 the Hindes were ready for another move and relocated up-the-street to 1524 N. Astor. Their former home was purchased by attorney Joseph P. Wilson, Jr. for his wife, two young children, and himself. Wilson was no stranger to the area. His father Wilson, Sr. was one of the first residents to build in the neighborhood, on Dearborn Avenue, in 1877. Unfotunately the Wilson's tenure in the house was short-lived. In 1912 Wilson filed for divorce naming the socially prominent Ogden T. McClurg as corespondent, and asking the court for the custody of his toddler-aged children. Wilson moved in with his parents and sold 1412 N. Astor to the William B. Hales. Hale was an attorney as well and knew Wilson, whose firm Wilson, Moore & McIlvaine was one of the city's largest and well connected. Hale was one of the two founders of the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs in 1922, and by 1928 had joined Wilson's firm, now called Wilson, McIlvaine, Hale & Templeton.
Eventually the house, like many others in the neighborhood, was divivded into smaller, mulit-unit living spaces - which it remains to this day.