{"nrhp_refnum":"07001476","name":"Blair, William McCormick, Estate","other_names":["John H. and Neville Bryan Home"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"982 Sheridan Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lake Bluff","county":"Lake County","state":"IL","lat":42.290234838500055,"lon":-87.83534307726626,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2008-01-31","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A nine-acre wooded lakeside estate at 982 Sheridan Road in Lake Bluff, Lake County, Illinois, designed by architect David Adler and built 1926-1928 for William McCormick Blair and Helen Bowen Blair. It has eight contributing buildings, a greenhouse and a walled garden.","why_significant":"The estate is presented as a carefully unified work by architect David Adler, with Colonial Revival and Georgian Revival buildings arranged in a landscape. It includes a walled garden by noted landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman and a Lord and Burnham greenhouse. It also reflects the early twentieth-century North Shore country estates and the Blair family's Chicago prominence.","narrative":"Set on a bluff above Lake Michigan in Lake Bluff, this nine-acre estate was built between 1926 and 1928 for William McCormick Blair and Helen Bowen Blair, who called it \"Port of Call.\" Architect David Adler designed the buildings as a related whole within a mostly wooded landscape. The white-shingled Colonial Revival main house has an irregular, rambling form with gable, saltbox and bellcast gambrel roofs, limestone accents and green shutters. A cluster of smaller buildings in the southwest corner includes a gardener's cottage, laundry and garage, machine shed, potting shed, a Georgian Revival tennis house and a Greek Temple folly. A long axial vista links the house and folly. Ellen Biddle Shipman designed the walled garden, and a Lord and Burnham greenhouse adjoins the potting shed. The estate is notable for its cohesive design, the quality of its materials and craftsmanship, and its good state of preservation, along with the Blairs' place in Chicago society.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"David Adler (architect); Ellen Biddle Shipman (landscape architect); Lord and Burnham (greenhouse)","architectural_style":"Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals / Colonial Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"All contributing buildings, the walled garden and the greenhouse are described as in excellent condition with excellent integrity; the main house is used as a single-family residence.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.013424-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/94/8932/28893294/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/07001476.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/07001476/0c28248d5f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/07001476/0c28248d5f-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_McCormick_Blair_Estate_house.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_McCormick_Blair_Estate_house.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893294","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McCormick_Blair_Estate","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q87738584"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/lake-county/blair-william-mccormick-estate-07001476/"}