{"nrhp_refnum":"86001198","name":"Mayfair Apartments","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1650--1666 E. Fifty-sixth St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chicago","county":"Cook County","state":"IL","lat":41.79532755100007,"lon":-87.58426972699993,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-05-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A twelve-story red brick apartment hotel at 1650-1666 East 56th Street in Hyde Park, Chicago, built in 1926 to designs by Lowenberg & Lowenberg.","why_significant":"The nomination presents it as a distinctive example of using past styles and ornament to link apartment hotels to forms people found acceptable. Classical ornament at the lower levels, repeated near the top, draws attention to the lower stories and downplays the building's height. It conveys a sense of intimacy at odds with its scale.","narrative":"Completed in 1926 at 1650-1666 East 56th Street in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, the Mayfair is a twelve-story apartment hotel measuring about 62 by 135 feet. Lowenberg & Lowenberg designed it in the Georgian Revival style, with red brick walls, limestone trim and a three-story limestone base. The base has a rusticated lower level, applied Corinthian columns, balustrades and a restrained entrance with a stone hood on ancones. A cornice with dentils and a broken swan pediment crowns the central bay windows, and the treatment is repeated at the eleventh floor. Its 88 units make it one of the smaller apartment hotels in Hyde Park. The building was listed as part of a group of Hyde Park apartment hotels. Its significance rests on the designer's deliberate use of familiar classical ornament to make a tall building feel traditional and intimate, directing attention to the lower stories and softening the impression of height.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Lowenberg & Lowenberg, architects; J. H. Buttas & Chas. Henery, owners; B. W. Construction Co., contractor","architectural_style":"Georgian Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.72328-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/44/8909/28890944/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/86001198.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86001198/0646647890-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86001198/0646647890-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Teemu08","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mayfair_Apartments.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Teemu08</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:Mayfair_Apartments.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28890944","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayfair_Apartments_(Chicago)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q85784474"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/cook-county/mayfair-apartments-86001198/"}