‘A road map for the future’: DuPage forest preserve plans phased improvements for historic Peabody estate

Compared to the opulence of Mayslake Hall, a three-story brick building next door is pretty spartan.

Mayslake has all the grand, sometimes curious details of a mansion built for a coal baron: stone and wood carvings, marble flooring, a hidden passageway and a Turkish bath.

The adjacent building was built for a Franciscan order and looks it, too.

As the modern-day owner of the old Peabody estate near Oak Brook, the

Forest Preserve District of DuPage County now has an improvement plan that calls for a partial demolition of the former retreat building.

The “retreat wing,” as it’s known, isn’t considered historically significant. Razing the southern portion of the building would open up views from the more-than-a-century-old mansion to the surrounding grounds.

“In taking this wing down, it creates a lot of opportunities for engagement with the natural world,” said Ellen Stoner, principal of AltusWorks, a historic preservation architecture firm. “It reinstates the historic vistas to the lake.”

The district has brought the Tudor-like mansion facade back to its former splendor. Officials turned their attention to its interior and other areas of the estate that were left untouched by that exterior project. Stoner’s firm assessed their condition and worked with district employees to draft a plan that would unfold in multiple phases.

A divided forest preserve board, though, recently voted to approve a scaled-back version of what the consultant had recommended. For his part, Forest Preserve President Daniel Hebreard wants greater accessibility to public event space on the first floor of Mayslake Hall.

“The board showed our commitment to this educational center in 2022 when we approved $6 million to be invested to protect and stabilize the exterior facade of the mansion,” he said at a board meeting earlier this month. “This plan is multiyear and will not be completed in short order. However, it does provide a road map for the future that will help the district address short-term needs to ensure the building is protected for years to come.”

The challenges

Benjamin Marshall — a hotel architect — designed the mansion for Francis Stuyvesant Peabody overlooking one of the lakes on his estate.

“We found that the mansion, in general, was in really good shape,” Stoner told the board. “As far as the historic finishes, there had been some abatement work done, but most of the historic finishes were intact. Where we saw challenges were really in the mechanical systems.”

After Peabody’s death, his family sold the property to a Franciscan order. The E-shaped retreat building has limited functional spaces as parts of the first, second and third floors have been gutted down to the structure, according to the consultant’s report. Removing the southern leg also would provide a spot to put a new mechanical plant, Stoner suggested.

“I think getting rid of the wing and the unused space so we don’t have to heat and cool it is a very wise long-term decision,” Hebreard said.

The first phase of the plan recommends critical repairs and building systems improvements at an estimated cost of more than $7.8 million.

“This really focuses on demolishing the south wing of … the retreat wing, stabilizing its envelope by repairing the roof, replacing the windows, restoring the masonry, and then stepping into the mansion and doing some work there,” Stoner said.

Priorities

The initial phase also calls for replacing the existing air-conditioning unit and installing a second one for the third-floor archives storage area — a district repository of archaeological items and other artifacts — in the retreat building.

But several forest preserve commissioners pushed back against some of the proposed improvements. For instance, the consultant advised the district to install a heating, cooling and ventilation system in a 1920s structure on the grounds: the Portiuncula Chapel, a replica of the original in Assisi, Italy. The entire plan would cost an estimated $19.4 million to complete.

“There’s no reason we need to fix up the basement, and we don’t need air conditioning in the little chapel for a few people,” Commissioner Linda Painter said.

The board voted to approve the plan for phase 1 and phase 4, which recommends expanding the link between the mansion and retreat building.

The district uses the property for architecture tours, book clubs, art classes and photography exhibits.

“It does have an accessible ramp that meets code to allow you to move between the two buildings,” Stoner said. “However, it’s not a very gracious entrance to such a beautiful complex, so we’d recommend looking at that and seeing how that could be upgraded to really kind of put a bow on the whole restoration of the complex.”

https://www.dailyherald.com/20250215/news/a-road-map-for-the-future-dupage-forest-preserve-plans-phased-improvements-for-historic-peabody-e/