{"nrhp_refnum":"93001605","name":"Principia College Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"River Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Elsah","county":"Jersey County","state":"IL","lat":38.951513786500044,"lon":-90.35128474554428,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1993-04-19","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1993-04-19","areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A college campus historic district on limestone bluffs above the Mississippi River at Elsah, Jersey County, Illinois, laid out as an English village and built mainly from 1931 onward. It was designed chiefly by architect Bernard Maybeck, with Henry Gutterson completing much of the work.","why_significant":"The district is argued to represent the final phase of Bernard Maybeck's career and his significant work in campus planning for educational institutions. The commission kept his office working through the Great Depression. Maybeck designed 13 buildings at Elsah, 11 of which survive, and the concentration rivals his surviving houses in the Berkeley Hills.","narrative":"Principia College occupies limestone bluffs above the Mississippi River at Elsah, Illinois, and was planned as an English village that follows the hills. The college serves young Christian Scientists. Its plan began in the 1920s for a Missouri lakeside site, but the site was changed in 1930 to the Illinois bluffs. San Francisco architect Bernard Maybeck designed the campus buildings from 1931, working closely with college director Frederic Morgan. Henry Gutterson later completed many of the designs. Buildings combine brick, stone, half-timbering, concrete and tile roofs, with a Colonial-style chapel of Indiana limestone. The district includes 24 contributing buildings from 1931 to 1946, and later college buildings from the 1950s to the 1980s are counted as noncontributing. It is considered significant as the last major phase of Maybeck's career and for its concentration of his work, eleven of whose buildings survive here. The landscape plan was by Butler Sturtevant.","period_of_significance":"1931-1946","architect_builder":"Bernard Maybeck (1862-1957); Henry Gutterson (1884-1954)","architectural_style":"Late 19th and Early 20th Century American Revivals: Tudor Revival; Colonial Revival","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Still in use as a college (education use listed for both historic and current function); 24 contributing and 23 noncontributing buildings.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:34.393871-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/4/8916/28891604/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/93001605_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93001605/9898926efa-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93001605/9898926efa-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.0","author":"stannate from St. Louis, MO, US","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Principia_College_(2152575562).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">stannate from St. Louis, MO, US</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Principia_College_(2152575562).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28891604","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_College_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7245136"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/jersey-county/principia-college-historic-district-93001605/"}