River North: Tree Studios, Annexes, and Courtyard

Tree Studio, State Street and Ohio Street..

Tree Studio, State Street and Ontario Street..

Tree Studios, Annexes, and Courtyard..
Address: 601-623 N. State St./4-10 E. Ohio St./3-7 E. Ontario St.

• Year Built..
  State Street building, 1894..
  Ohio Street annex, 1912..
  Ontario Street annex, 1913 ..


• Architects..
  State Street building, Parfitt Brothers, with Bauer & Hill..
  Ohio Street and Ontario Street annexes, Hill & Woltersdorf..


• Date Designated a Chicago Landmark..
  State Street building, February 26, 1997,
  Ohio Street and Ontario Street annexes and courtyard, June 27, 2001..

Intended as a home for artists at the turn of the century, the Tree Studios was constructed by philanthropists Judge and Mrs. Lambert Tree using the finest craftsmanship and details of the period.

The original 1894 building facing State Street was designed in a Queen Anne style and is lined with retail storefronts that provided rental income that subsidized the rents for the artists' studios. The 1912 and 1913 annexes built on Ohio and Ontario Streets were designed in the English Arts & Crafts style.

The building's large windows, picturesque details, and distinctive interior courtyard instantly made it a unique cultural oasis and home to many significant artists, including sculptors Albin Polasek and John Storrs; illustrator J. Allen St. John; muralist John Warner Norton; painters Ruth Van Sickle Ford, James Murray Haddow, and Pauline Palmer; and actors Peter Falk and Burgess Meredith. The nation's oldest-known artist studios, the building complex is one of the most distinctive features of the River North neighborhood..

At the entrances of the original studio building, a pair of heads, one male and one female are carved into stone ornamentation. The heads are of
- [image above] Judge Lambert Tree
- [image below] His wife Anna Field Tree [daughter of Marshall Field]

Tree Studio, State Street..

Ohio Street Annex..

Ohio Street Annex..

Ontario Street Annex, now the home of Metropolitan Capital..
Over each window, is the curved pediment, at the center of which is a tree on a shield and two lines from poem..
Art is long, Time is fleeting
So be up and doing, still achieving, still pursuing..
- A Psalm of Life, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow..

Bas Relief, Ontario Street Annex..