"It was the Gold Coast of the South Side," said Shirley Newsome, chairman of the North Kenwood-Oakland Conservation Community Council. "It's obvious in the housing stock. You had mansions with ballrooms. The construction and ornamentation tells you they were owned by people of means.” “Kenwood is the Lake Forest of the South, without the exclusiveness of its northern rival,” declared an 1874 publication describing the Chicago suburbs.

With its excellent lakefront location, just 10 minutes from the Loop and blocks to the University of Chicago, this area attracted some of the city's most prominent citizens at the turn of the century.  Senators, Ambassadors, and Chicago's merchant princes commissioned notable architects to build lavish private homes. Graceful mansions designed in the styles of the times were the beginning of North Kenwood-Oakland's housing stock.