HAB ITAT
56 CHICAGO | SEPTEMBER 2019 Styling by KELLY McKAIG
W
HEN YOU LIVE IN THE KIND
of house that requires you to
restore 90 leaded glass win-
dows and replace a copperroof (twice) plus seven headless gar-
goyles, curious strangers tend to come
knocking on the door. Such has been the
experience at a Kenwood mansion owned
by sculptor Melissa Weber and her hus-
band, Jay Dandy, a research assistant at
the Art Institute of Chicago. “One time a
guy who worked for Reverend Clarence
Cobbs, who lived here for 30 years, came
by,” Weber recalls. “Another time, an
expert with the Hyde Park–Kenwood
Historic District wanted a tour.”
These days, it’s the art crowd that
covets an invitation to one of the many
art openings hosted by the passion-
ate collectors, who have filled their
11,000-square-foot Gothic Revival with
pieces that contrast with the dark and dec-
orative architecture. Among their trove:
85 or so George Nelson clocks, several
Andy Warhol silkscreens, a handful of Roy
Lichtenstein prints, ceramics by Theaster
Gates and Suze Lindsay, some rather sexy
Tom Wesselmanns, and one taxidermied
honey-colored black bear. “We didn’t want
to make an expected house,” Dandy says.
The couple never anticipated living in
such a storied home — at least, not one that
diverges so dramatically from their typi-
cal taste for midcentury modern design.
But once they had two sets of twins (now
ages 19 and 22) and enrolled them in the
Un iver sit y of C h ica go L abor ator y Schools
in Hyde Park, moving from Wicker Park
made sense. That was in 2002. “We’d go
trick-or-treating to look at houses, and
we must have formally toured at least a
dozen,” recalls Dandy, noting that the
family’s previous residence was a tall
and narrow Victorian.
With its generous proportions, 11
bedrooms, coffered ceilings, and grand
central staircase, the red-brick Kenwood
house was irresistible. Charles Sumner
Frost, who designed Navy Pier, built it
in 1909 for the president of the Union
Stock Yard & Transit Co., which was
the impetus for Carl Sandburg’s famous
description of Chicago as “Hog Butcher ACCESSORIES: JAYSON HOME AND GARDEN | FLORALS:
FLOWERS FOR DREAMSThe original vaulted ceiling adds
grandeur and drama to the couple’s
bright office. It’s outfitted with
an actual zebra skin, Dieter Rams’s
shelving units, and a Florence
Knoll table.The 110-year-old red-brick
Gothic Revival was designed by
Charles Sumner Frost for the
president of what was once the
nation’s largest stockyard.