{"nrhp_refnum":"75000662","name":"Francis, Frederick, Woodland Palace","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2.5 mi. NE of Kewanee on IL 34","address_restricted":false,"city":"Kewanee","county":"Henry County","state":"IL","lat":41.275862362000055,"lon":-89.77538392399998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-04-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Woodland Palace is a small brick house in Francis Park, about 2.5 miles east of Kewanee, Henry County, Illinois. Frederick Francis designed and built it himself between 1889 and 1926.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the house is one of the most unusual residential structures in Illinois, the personal creation of a gifted, eccentric inventor. It combines high craftsmanship with unusual mechanical systems. The form calls it an untutored, vernacular interpretation of the Queen Anne and Romanesque styles, and compares it to the work of Gaudi in Barcelona.","narrative":"Woodland Palace is a one-story reddish firebrick house in Francis Park, east of Kewanee, Illinois. Frederick Francis, a mechanical engineer and inventor born in 1856, began it in 1889 and kept working on the house and its contents until his death in 1926. He hand-chipped much of the brick for texture and added a scored concrete entry tower. The house includes a bedroom patterned after a Pullman sleeping car, a circular solarium, and furnishings he made himself. Its mechanical features include windows with built-in screens that rise automatically, a doorway whose two doors open together, and a cooling system that drew air through a 350-foot underground tunnel using fans powered by a windmill. Francis left the house and grounds to the city as a park and museum. It is considered one of the most unusual residential structures in Illinois, notable for its craftsmanship, inventive systems and personal approach to Queen Anne and Romanesque design.","period_of_significance":"1889 through 1926","architect_builder":"Frederick Francis","architectural_style":"Eclectic; untutored interpretation of Queen Anne and Romanesque styles","criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned by the City of Kewanee and open to the public year round as a museum, with tours given by volunteers. Condition is listed as good and altered; the roof was replaced during restoration.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.310995-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/80/8929/28892980/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/75000662.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000662/640abad2e4-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000662/640abad2e4-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Kepper66","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederick_Francis_Woodland_Palace.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Kepper66</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederick_Francis_Woodland_Palace.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892980","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Francis_Woodland_Palace","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24061813"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/henry-county/francis-frederick-woodland-palace-75000662/"}