S.135 – Avery Coonley Residence,

281 Bloomingbank Road, Riverside, Illinois

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FACEBOOK PAGE -–MAINLY RESTORATION UPDATES

The Coonley Residence is part of a complex of four buildings completed over a five-year period, which also includes the Coonley Gardener’s Cottage (S.136), the Coonley Carriage House (S.137), and the Coonley Playhouse (S.174).

By 2014 the Coonley Residence had gone unsold, its multi-million dollar pricetag hardly attracting buyers during the economic downturn. As a result, the house sat vacant and attracted human vermin. While the outside shows ravages of weather and time, the interior was subjected to more deliberate damage as the house became a local party site. Local and national historic designations served as a restraint upon owners and developers, not upon teenagers.

It was sold in 2015 and the new owners engaged in a massive restoration (chronicled on a Facebook account).

Photographed on August 6, 2014 and in April 1994.

Project number: T.0803

2014 photos:

Examples of damage

The marker starts to look more like a gravestone

1994 photos:

S.135 – Windows & Furniture

Window formerly located in the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows at Navy Pier in Chicago. Photographed in August 2008.

Window from Coonley Residence, displayed at Art Institute of Chicago,

photographed November 10, 2013:

MAP TO MUSEUM

Desk at Art Institute of Chicago, photographed November 10, 2013:

Revised 05/27/2018