Gross' Terrace
[Alta Vista Terrace (1900-04) Joseph C. Brompton, architect /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
Samuel E. Gross was one busy real estate man. By the time he died in 1913 he developed
21 subdivisions in Chicago where he sold over 40,000 lots and 10,000 houses. He brought his potential buyers out to the outer reaches of the city on "country excursions" in hired rail cars with the promise of a picnic lunch upon arrival plus the proverbial sales pitch. When he created Alta Vista Terrace his career was nearing its end and the Terrace was one of his most unusual projects.
[S.E corner facade and its match on the N.W. corner /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
Gross was supposedly inspired by the rows of houses he had seen in London and wanted
to duplicate that feeling in this Chicago project. Unlike the typical row house block in Britain where every facade on the street is identical, Gross had architect Joseph Brompton give each house a distinct street front which is matched by the house across the street. What makes Alta Vista Terrace so unique is that instead of having the duplicate front facade directly across from one another, the developer and architect flipped the line-up so that the house at the southeast corner of the block matched the facade of the northwest corner, so every match happens diagonally down the block from one side to the other. The only houses that are mirror images of one another are the house fronts at the very middle of the block.
[Matched but altered on the west side of Alta Vista and down the block on the east side /Images & Artwork:
designslinger]
The original floor plans were all identical; front hall and stair, living room, dining room,
and kitchen on the first floor, bedrooms and one bath upstairs. The lots were unusually shallow for a Chicago lot, only 40 feet deep with a standard 25 foot width, so the houses weren't very big square footage wise. While many of the interior layouts have apparently been worked-over and reworked again, most of the exteriors have survived intact. Unfortunately a few have had some alterations destroying the synchronized, repetitive pattern. The houses pictured above are one of the matching pair across the street and down the block from one another, but the house on the right (which happens to be on the east side of the street) lost its brick parapet at some point.
[Alta Vista details /Images & Artwork:designslinger]
In 1887 Gross was said to be worth several million dolllars and purchased a large frame
house for himself and his wife Emily on Lake Shore Drive from James Charnley who was moving around the corner to Astor Street. For all of Gross' success he was bankrupt by 1909, the year he divorced his wife and married 18-year-old Ruby Haughey of Battle Creek, Michigan who just happened to be 43 years younger than the real estate developer. Gross did his best to flee from his creditors, always one step ahead of the sheriff, but was finally served papers when he was found napping on a porch. When he died he had $150,000 left in his estate, half of which went to Ruby with the remainder going to other relatives and long time employees.
Posted by designslinger at 7/19/2010 1:40 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History, Preservation
Tags: Samuel E. Gross Alta Vista Terrace Joseph C. Brompton row houses
Categories: Architecture, History, Preservation
Tags: Samuel E. Gross Alta Vista Terrace Joseph C. Brompton row houses
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